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BEYOND THE GRAVE 



BEING 



THREE LECTURES BEFORE CHAUTAUQUA 
ASSEMBLY IN 1878, 



PAPERS ON RECOGNITION IN THE FUTURE STATE, 



AND OTHER ADDENDA. 



BY 

BISHOP RANDOLPH S. FOSTER, 

Of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 




fc^ 









> 187P. 
NEWYORK: 
PHILLIPS & HUNT. 

CINCINNATI: 
HITCHCOCK & WALDEN. 

1879. 



' 



ft 



Copyright 1879, by 

PHILLIPS & HUNT, 

New York. 



The Library 
of Congress 



WASHINGTON 



OOTsTTEIsrTS. 



LECTURE I. 

Man a Spiritual Being Page 13 

The subject to be considered— Possible methods of treatment— The method 
adopted— Should difficulties be stated ?— Ground of belief that they should— 
The right way of meeting difficulties— Evils of exaggeration— The right of 
dissent— Beliefs have no value simply as such — Two questions— Comprehen- 
sion of the phrase, "Beyond the grave"— Life after death not known— "What 
cannot be known may, nevertheless, be believed— Causes of differences of 
belief— The debate inevitable and interminable— On the subject, two classes 
of views— Varieties in first class— Mixed variety— Varieties under second 
class — Theory espoused and defended — The crucial question, Is man a spir- 
itual being ?— Effect on the whole question of the discovery that man is 
simply an organism of matter— First great mistake— Additional difficulty- 
Sources of proof— First possible source— Second possible source— Both sources 
claimed— First kind of proof examined— Man a spirit shrined in a body— Em- 
barrassments removed— Spirit possesses tbe personal endowments— Differences 
between the shrine and its occupant— Powerlessness of the organism— Su- 
premacy of the spirit— His power on the instrument limited— The body simply 
instrumental— Instinctive impulses of the nature of desires, may precede think- 
ing, but they are not properly personal acts— Proof that the body is simply in- 
strumental—Proof of the general proposition that spirit is a real and discrete 
substance — Spirit a thought factor— Thought underlies every organism— Illus- 
tration— Is thought a result of organization ?— Results of human thought— Re- 
sults of God's thought— Certainty that all organisms had a beginning— Proof 
that the present order cannot be eternal— Illustration from the structure and 
motions of the earth— Illustration from grain— Illustration from man— No ag- 
gregate of beginning can reach the unbegun— An eternal cause must underlie 
the order, which is not itself of the order— The cause must be a thinker— The 
cause must have more essential being than the effect— The proof that man is a 
spirit— Geological proof— The spirit seen not directly, but by reflection in the 
face— The spirit known by consciousness— The spirit seen in the machine— The 
body vanishes, the spirit abides— Illustration of the permanence of the con- 



O CONTENTS. 

scious self— The picture gallery of memory a spirit hold— Definition of spirit— 
The self-conscious ego a unit— The self a free self-centered power— The proof 
from Scripture. 

LECTURE II. 

Man a Spiritual Being Page 59 

Does the spirit survive the body?— No proof that death is destructive of the 
person— No proof that the body is necessary to the conscious activity of the 
spirit— Illustration— May not the body be, in many respects, a clog to the spir- 
it ?— Even now the spirit lives its highest life without sensation— Explanation 
asked for— Illustration— Lord Brougham's argument for a separate existence 
of the soul— The mind conscious of its own existence, though separated from 
the body— Death destroys the organism of man— The departure of the soul im- 
perceptible to the senses— Future immortal existence not a matter of knowl- 
edge—Present conscious existence gives probability of continued existence — 
First proof of immortality— Nothing once created ever reduced to non- 
existence— The electric telegraph— Second argument— Nature of the soul — 
Unfolding of the soul— Unlimited power of the soul, or capacity for endless 
development— Illustration— Third argument— Instincts of the soul— Conscience 
— Fourth argument— The divine character reauires immortality— First, his love 
— Justice — Fifth argument— Universal belief in immortality— Whence came 
the belief ? A beautiful illustration— Summary of preceding points. 

LECTURE III. 
Man a Spiritual Being Page 109 

Second source of proof, revelation— The Scriptures teach the doctrine of 
man's immortality— The Bible God's testimony— How we are affected when we 
come to the holy volume — Fullness of the deliverance — The matchless Teacher 
dies and rises again— The fact of future life being established, darkness still 
hangs over the subject— First reason for the obscurity— Second reason for the 
obscurity — Third reason for the obscurity— Are all immortal ?— Power of the 
suggestion that at least the finally wicked perish out of existence— The attempt 
to prove that the wicked will cease to exist : its source— Appeal to the Script- 
ures in support of the utter extirpation of the wicked— The word rendered soul 
—Rule to determine the meaning of words of more meanings than one — Dr. 
George Bush's enumeration and classification of the words rendered "soul" 
and " spirit " — Passages which seem to represent death as overthrow of being 
—Such an interpretation not accordant with the true sense of Scripture theory 
of the unconscious state of the dead— The theory repugnant to reason — The 
Scriptures teach the dead are conscious— Distinction between the body of the 
person and the person itself— Penalty not annihilation— Scriptures which rep- 



CONTENTS. J 

resent that eternal life is result of faith — The doctrine is unwelcome and hor- 
rific—But probably true— The doctrine must he accepted, painful though it be 
— Tbe second point— Sleep of the soul— The intermediate state— Is the soul 
clothed during the intermediate state ?— Where do souls dwell during the in- 
termediate state ?— The various stages of human existence intimate continu- 
ally enlarged powers— How do souls employ themselves during the interval 
between death and the great judgment ?— Man not designed to be immortal iu 
the body given to him at creation— What are the supposable uses of bodies 
in the next life ?— New ends of bodies in the future life — Resurrection of the 
man— Various theories of the resurrection considered. 

The Doctrine op Recognition in a Future Life -Interest of the subject 
—Assumption that the dead recognize each other in that future life — Relations 
of earth not renewed there— Recollections of the earthly life not obliterated 
— Death merely the removal, not destruction, of the soul — The departed will 
exist in a social state— Man's nature teaches this— Spirits are probably visible 
to each other— Scriptural argument for recognition in heaven. 

Appendix : Note A Page 229 

" Note B 243 



INTRODUCTION 



THE substance of what follows was delivered in 
several unwritten addresses before the " Chautau- 
qua Assembly," in 1878, and published in the "Assem- 
bly Daily Herald " at the time. 

So many have expressed a wish to have the thoughts 
in a more permanent form, that I have judged it best 
to revise them, and, with some additions, to send them 
to the wider public in an inexpensive book. 

Some few years since I furnished some magazine ar- 
ticles on "Recognition in the Future State." These 
were received with favor, and I have thought it proper 
to reproduce them here, with some enlargement. The 
subjects are so germane that the two discussions come 
into line and form a homogeneous whole, or complete- 
ness, which neither of them reaches alone. 

It is believed that such is the intrinsic importance of 
the subject, and such its interest to our affections and 
our religious faith, that it deserves more attention than 
it has received ; and the more so because of the mate- 
rializing tendencies of the times under the specious 
guise of science and philosophy. The presentation 
herein given is intended for the average reader; but 



I O IN TR OD UC TIO N. 

while it aims at a plain and intelligible style of treat- 
ment, level to the understanding of the unlearned, it 
also proposes thoroughness. Awarding due honor to 
the holy Scriptures, as the court of ultimate appeal 
and supreme authority, it gives reason fair play through- 
out. Authority is not once evoked to silence or 
answer an objection, or remove a difficulty, but only to 
furnish information to the understanding, and adduce 
new elements of knowledge to assist the reason in 
reaching its conclusions. The discussion is conducted 
on the theory that no doctrine, or phase of doctrine, can 
deserve faith, except on the ground that the reasons 
for accepting it are more convincing than any that can 
be adduced for rejecting it, and that every doctrine is 
open to fair and unreserved criticism. If, upon exam- 
ination, it cannot make good its claim, it ought not to 
be received ; but in every case the examination should 
be candid, painstaking, and thorough, without prejudice 
or passion, and especially so if the doctrine be im- 
portant in matters of practical moment. 

Many beliefs that have long passed unchallenged 
among the wisest and best people — that have gained 
universal sway, and that have the most powerful sym- 
pathies of mankind in their support — are now being 
called in question. However unpleasant the fact, it 
certainly is not a matter of just complaint. It is simply 
the result of that exercise of indefeasible rights of the 
mind of any age, which can never be abolished until 
men cease to value truth. Any doctrine which cannot 
endure the test of the most searching scrutiny should 



IN TROD UC TION. 1 1 

be ruled out as unworthy of belief. By this we do not 
mean to affirm the extreme rationalistic ground, that 
no doctrine should be entertained which transcends 
comprehension. We are compelled to believe many 
things which our reason can neither originate, explain, 
nor comprehend ; but we can only be held under obli- 
gation to believe them when we are convinced of their 
truth, or because the reasons for accepting them are 
stronger than any which exist for rejecting them. 
Thus, when a doctrine which transcends comprehen- 
sion asks our faith, we guard the rights of reason by de- 
manding adequate evidence. No authority exists which 
has a right to dominate belief in violation of this princi- 
ple. The sufficient proof must exist in every case, and 
the individual reason has a right to demand that it be al- 
leged, and to withhold acceptance until it is furnished. 
Reason not only has this right, but the nature of the 
mind is such, that whenever it believes it assumes there 
is adequate evidence, and conceives itself as possessing 
it in some form or other, or is able to obtain it if occa- 
sion should require. No one supposes himself to be- 
lieve without grounds. The reflective reason, however, 
must always be the court of final appeal to decide 
whether the supposed evidence is real and adequate. 

There are doctrines which no stress of evidence 
could force upon a rational being — which no authority 
in the universe could make obligatory. Such is any 
doctrine which is self-contradictory, or any proposition 
which is contrary to any knowledge which we possess. 
Belief against knowledge is impossible. 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

When a doctrine stands on authority of revelation — a 
" thus saith the Lord " — it must, first, be a doctrine that 
is not self-contradictory ; and, second, it must not con- 
tradict our knowledge. It may transcend our power of 
discovery or comprehension ; and after its deliverance 
it may be impossible to find any other reason for be- 
lieving it than that God says it. In that case it stands 
purely on authority — it is information furnished us by a 
Being who knows it to be true, and we simply submit 
our minds to his statement. But in this case our rea- 
son is not overslaughed. We still maintain the highest 
rationality when we demand, as a condition of our faith, 
the sufficient proof that it is the God of truth who an- 
nounces the doctrine. Let this proof be furnished, and, 
by a law of the highest reason, we are compelled to be- 
lieve — the strongest faith becomes the purest rational- 
ity. No greater proof can exist than a " thus saith the 
Lord " — not even our direct cognition ; but we must 
know that it is a "thus saith the Lord." And we in- 
tuitively know that between a " thus saith the Lord " 
and our immediate cognition there never will or can be 
contradiction. 



BEYOND THE GRAVE 



LECTURE I. 

MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 

'THHE subject I am to treat is, " Life beyond the 
4- grave." There are three possible methods of 
conducting the discussion. These are, 

First : To assume every thing, and give wing 
to imagination and feeling. Second : To treat it 
exegetically, as purely a doctrine of revelation. 
Third : To submit it to the reason, and examine it 
in the light of all the facts bearing upon it which lie 
within the circle of our intelligence. The grand- 
eur and obscurity of the subject invite to the first ; 
reverence for the Scriptures and Christian impulse 
indicate the second ; the claims of intelligence, and 
the deeper wants of reason and the soul, call for 
the third. Aiming at the best and most perma- 
nent results, we adopt the third method. This will 
require us to bring to view all the objections which 
have been alleged against the doctrine we shall as- 
sert and defend, and which you believe and hold 
sacred. 



14 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

There are many who are impatient of objections 
to their cherished beliefs. The intimation of them 
grates harshly upon their sensibilities — irritates 
them. There are some excellent people who think 
that the Christian teacher, in treating Christian 
doctrines, has nothing to do with difficulties of the 
reason ; that he should never allude to or attempt 
to answer them ; that his simple function is, to an- 
nounce the mind of the Spirit, as he finds it in the 
word. It is assumed, that to notice a difficulty, is to 
create one in many minds. There is some truth in 
this; but it does not follow that the teacher should, 
therefore, utterly ignore the existence of difficulties, 
or that he should dismiss them as trivial, or answer 
them by denouncing those who are affected by them. 
There is but one way for him who aspires to be a 
teacher and conservator of right doctrines, and who 
shall deserve the respect and confidence of those to 
whom he may speak ; and that is, to fully inform 
himself of whatever may be said or thought against 
his teachings, and then with honest candor to exam- 
ine and refute the objections, or to acknowledge that 
he cannot. He must allow the objection fair play; 
must resort to no tricks, or evasions, or sophistries. 
If then he can show that despite all objections the 
reason is clearly in favor of his view, he deserves to 
win; otherwise, not. There is no other just ground 
on which he may push his views. He must be 
willing to challenge scrutiny, and not wince when 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. I 5 

it is severe. It is an unsafe condition of mind even 
to desire to make a case seem stronger than it really 
is. All exaggeration as to the strength of one side 
or weakness of another is ill-judged, and, in the 
end, mischievous. The mind demands fairness as 
its highest right. He who would, for the sake of 
triumph, or for any other object, impose an insuffi- 
cient reason on the minds he addresses deserves no 
hearing. The just suspicion that he would take 
advantage of credulity or affection, or that he would, 
unwatched, treat with light respect the claims of 
reason, should render him unfit to address reasonable 
men. The highest interests of humanity require that 
we should hold forever sacred the right of dissent, 
and that it is even better to doubt than to assent, 
when the proof is not sufficient. It is only thus that 
any belief can be known to represent probable truth, 
and become of value. The supreme want of the 
mind is truth. Doctrines or beliefs have no value 
simply as such. They acquire their only value from 
their truth. It is, therefore, the one business of the 
teacher to inculcate truth, and to furnish the evi- 
dence that what he teaches is truth. 

" Life beyond the grave!" We are at once aware 
that the subject is one of great intrinsic interest, 
though naturally of almost impenetrable obscurity. 
The grave bounds our vision. How shall we find 
out any thing which lies beyond ? Can we ever 
know that there is any life beyond? At the an- 



ID BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

nouncement of the subject immediately two ques- 
tions meet us and formulate the discussion : — 

i. What evidence is there that life transcends the 
grave — that death is not overthrow? 

2. What are the probable characteristics of life 
beyond the grave ? These natural divisions deter- 
mine our method. 

Beyond the grave may be taken in a wider or 
more restricted sense ; may open the question as to 
the whole realm of life in the invisible world ; or 
may be limited to the simple question, What comes 
to us after death ? Does the obverse side of the 
grave open into the spiritual world, and what is it 
like? or, simply, do we pass through the grave into 
a continued life, and what is it like? We must 
confine our discussion to the second, and more re- 
stricted aspect of the subject. But, as to either 
aspect, our immediate consciousness is, that we are 
attempting to penetrate a terra incognita — a region 
of darkness — where we must feel our way tenta- 
tively, and by slow and difficult movement. Does 
death end all? We answer unhesitatingly, unwav- 
eringly, No. The answer represents our belief, not 
our knowledge. However it may awaken surprise,* 
truth demands that we should make the confession 

* I have been informed that both the religious and secular press, 
and many well-meaning people, ministers and laymen, have ex- 
pressed great astonishment and some feeling at this statement. I 
can hardly say that I am surprised at it : and yet a little reflection 
would have sufficed to convince them of its exact truth. 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1? 

that we do not know that death does not end all. 
Nor does any man know that it does. If it were 
given to men on the earth to know, that would be 
the end of uncertainty, or even questioning. We 
do not know ; therefore we are liable to have mis- 
givings, doubts, and fears. There is not a single fact 
within our reach that furnishes us absolute knowl- 
edge. We have neither sense nor mental vision of 
man after he dies. He does not again appear within 
the range of our faculties. We do not find him. 
Where he is, or that he is at all, is absolutely un- 
known to us. Our consciousness is silent on the 
subject. The dead do not come back to us, and we 
are not able to go to them. This, without doubt, 
is the common experience of humanity. If there 
are any who imagine that they know, we are not 
anxious to dispossess them of the pleasing delusion 
— it cannot harm them. 

Having conceded that there is no absolute knowl- 
edge in the premises, pro or con, we now affirm that 
we find it quite impossible for us to doubt. The 
strength of the belief is unquestionably instinctive, 
but this only points to its probable truth. That 
which we now seek to find out is this : Since we 
have no means of absolute knowledge, what may 
we rationally believe? Are there facts which ought 
to determine our beliefs one way or the other? 
Let us not fall into the dangerous fallacy, that 
since knowledge is impossible, inquiry is Useless. 



1 8 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

There is a truth. Either man does survive death, 
or he does not. If he does, we ought to believe 
it, since not to believe it is not only to be in error, 
but is to darken our lives with despair when they 
ought to be bright with hope ; is to withdraw from 
us influences which we need amid the temptations 
and sorrows of this state. To believe the truth, 
or have truth in our beliefs, is quite as important 
as to know the truth ; and it is as much a duty to 
regulate our beliefs according to reason, as it is to 
attain to knowledge of the knowable. The duty 
to know applies to one class of subjects, and the 
duty to believe to another; and the duty is equally 
imperative in both cases. 

In regard to matters of which absolute knowledge 
is impossible, or does not exist, there will probably 
arise differences of belief. This results from per- 
fectly natural causes. The mind will, when it by 
any means becomes informed of a subject, adopt 
some view or opinion about it if it awakens the 
slightest interest. Difference of faculty, opportu- 
nity, attention, will develop difference of judgment. 
Knowledge alone precludes differences; but so far 
as it is knowledge it does. Truth is one, and never 
contradictory, and so must knowledge be. In mere 
opinions or beliefs there may be exact truth, some 
truth, or no truth at all ; or, possibly, there may be 
some truth and some error in each case ; but there 
will in most cases be inevitable differences, and 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 9 

where there is difference there must be some error 
somewhere. Right use of faculty, with fair oppor- 
tunity, will either discover the truth in most cases, 
or will discover that there is no possible ground for 
any belief whatever. It results that with regard to 
all matters about which we cannot obtain personal 
knowledge, since we must have opinions, we owe 
it to truth to use proper diligence in the em- 
ployment of the best means in our reach to at- 
tain right conclusions. With honesty, we shall get 
the substance of truth in most cases ; and in every 
case, will have done the best in our power. We 
will not have outraged reason in either our doubts 
or beliefs. 

Continued difference and disputation should not 
discourage us. In the nature of the case this is in- 
evitable. Each mind must act for itself, and as new 
minds are constantly coming into the arena, the old 
questions must be fought over in each age. It is a 
fair presumption that the debate will never cease, 
and nothing will ever be settled for all time. This 
is not because there is no truth, nor because truth 
cannot be ascertained, but because it must be 
sought by each generation, and, in fact, by each 
mind for itself, and so each mind must renew the 
combat. There is no other way. Let the glori- 
ous fight go on ! The sturdier the blows the better 
for truth. 

The subject we are now discussing, we have seen, 



20 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

is not one about which we possess knowledge. The 
result is difference or disagreement in the conclu- 
sions reached. The following will sufficiently for- 
mulate the several views which have prevailed, and 
indicate the differences ; and our business will be 
to impartially examine them, and show the rea- 
sons why one view should be embraced and others 
rejected. 

Among the divergent views there are varieties 
under two classes: — 

Class first includes all who deny any existence 
after death. Class second includes all who admit 
some kind of existence after death. The varieties 
are modifications of one kind or another on the 
general subject. 

I. Agnostics — PyrrJicnists. These two schools of 
thought come to unity in the conclusion, but by 
different routes. They each deny the possibility of 
knowledge, and for this reason attempt to abstain 
from belief. To the question, Does man survive 
death ? they answer, We do not know. To the 
question, What do you believe? they answer, We 
have no belief. This class is, and must always be, 
extremely small and insignificant, and can never 
have appreciable influence over the general mind.* 

* It is an inconsistency of this school, that while it assumes that 
there is no ground of belief, it is the most militant of all against cer- 
tain phases of belief. It disbelieves, without perceiving that dis- 
belief is only another form of belief. 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 21 

Their atmosphere is too thin for the average man 
to live in. Men must have opinions, and a school 
which absolutely refuses to contribute any thing to 
the common stock can elicit no respect, and gain no 
following. 

2. Atheists — Materialists. This school, under all 
its phases, reduces all existence to matter, and admits 
of nothing as possible but its shifting phenomena. 
Forms perish and never return. Death ends all. 

3. A Modified Materialism, which holds that, 
while back of all there is an infinite Spirit, man 
is but an animated clod, an organism of matter. 
Among those agreeing in this view so far, there 
is a difference as to the effect of death, one part 
holding that it is utter overthrow, while another 
part, claiming to be Christian, holds to some future 
restoration of the organism, and an immortal life 
to the good subsequent thereto. As to the fate 
of the evil-minded or wicked, some of these hold 
that they will be raised and publicly destroyed — ■ 
annihilated — while some do not believe that they 
have any future at all. 

4. Of the second class are a school of Christian 
thinkers, who hold to the existence of a spiritual 
soul, but who hold that death is its lapse or anni- 
hilation, except where it is rendered immortal by 
special gift through faith in Christ. The unbeliev- 
ing utterly perish. 

5. A class of Christians, who affirm that man 



22 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

is a spirit, and is immortal, but who believe that, 
separate from the body, he becomes unconscious, 
and remains so until the body is raised again at the 
last day. The interval is a profound sleep. 

6. The common Christian view, that man is a 
spirit, to whom death is simple separation from the 
body, without loss or interruption of consciousness, 
and that the emancipated soul enters immediately 
upon an immortal life. To this they add belief in 
a resurrection of the body, but differ as to the time 
and manner of it; whether it comes at death, or at 
some remote time, and whether it is a restoration 
of the perished body, in whole or in part, or a rcin- 
vestiture of the spirit with a different and more glo- 
rious spiritual body. These, also, differ among 
themselves as to whether souls enter immediately 
at death upon their final and most exalted state, or 
only upon an intermediate and, compared with the 
former, an inferior condition, until after the resur- 
rection. 

The defense of the last-named theory, in the 
form in which we accept it, will bring all the other 
views under examination, and its establishment will 
be their refutation. The pivotal and crucial point 
of the discussion is the question, which in some 
form comes to view in all the theories, whether man 
is a spiritual being or not. Around this point the 
battle of the ages has been fought, to be renewed 
as each generation comes upon the field. 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 2$ 

If it were once established that man is simply the 
organized thing which we cognize by sense, the de- 
bate would soon close, further discussion would be- 
come a simple impertinence. It is that hallucina- 
tion so strangely possessing many, almost all, minds, 
which makes the principal difficulty in arriving 
at the. truth in the premises. The thing which 
we see, and touch, and handle — which for a time 
goes in and out among us with a visible presence 
— which strangely fascinates us while it stays, and 
saddens us when it is -removed — which, while living, 
exercises over us a witchery that nothing else ever 
can, and, when dead, becomes more sacred than any 
thing we ever knew — we come to think is our self 
or our friend. When finally it sickens, and dies, 
and becomes unresponsive to our cries of affection, 
we say our friend is dead. We identify the stark, 
cold, and unresponsive mold which lies before us 
with the person. We wonder if he will ever come 
to life again. This is the first great mistake. Starl- 
ing from it, every step is dark and discouraging. We 
consign the quickly-decaying form to the grave. 
We know that it soon molders to dust. There is 
not a single sign that it will ever germinate or return 
to life. There is every indication that it never will. 
To believe that it will, on any facts which appear, or 
any rational ground within our reach, is impossible. 
Until we see that the corrupting clod, however dear 
to us, is not the person we so fondly loved, hope 



24 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

even is impossible, much more rational belief. If 
it is only the house that is in ruins, there is a possi- 
ble chance for the thought, that maybe the over- 
throw is not utter and irretrievable. But how shall 
we find our way out of this thick darkness? 

There is this additional discouragement, that while 
wc see the form utterly dissipated, and have not 
the slightest hint of its restoration, but absolute and 
overwhelming proof to the contrary, the person 
himself, if distinct from the body, vanishes so 
quickly that we do not see what has become of 
him. Has he gone out like a flash, or stolen away 
unobserved ? Who can tell ? Sense gives us no in- 
formation whatever : this we are constrained to 
admit. The argument, from sense, is wholly ad- 
verse to the idea that any thing survives, or that 
there will ever be a return. Not the faintest ray of 
hope comes from that quarter, the darkness is utter. 
We strain our eyes in vain, wc listen with breath- 
less silence to no purpose. We neither see, nor 
hear, nor feel, the vanishing spirit, and no report of 
any kind floats back over the dark sea. He has 
departed, and no one that goes that way returns 
to tell the story. For ages the world has been 
waiting and watching ; millions, with broken hearts, 
have hovered around the yawning abyss ; but no 
echo has come back from the engulfing gloom 
— silence, oblivion, covers all. If indeed they 
survive ; if they went away whole and victorious, 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 2$ 

they give us no signals. We wait for years, but no 
messages come from the far-away shore to which 
they have gone. 

The result is, that any evidence that may exist 
on the question, do we survive death ? must arise 
from one of two sources : — 

1. From such facts, of a super-sensible kind, as 
come within our knowledge, which may render 
it reasonable to believe that death is not the de- 
struction of the self-conscious subject. The evi- 
dence will be inductive, and its value will depend 
on the adequacy of the facts to sustain the inference 
or conclusion deduced. If the facts are undisputed 
and indisputable, and if they point plainly and 
strongly to the probability of a future life, and if 
there be no counter facts canceling them, they may 
be of evidential value. The facts may be of per- 
sonal experience and consciousness, or may be com- 
mon and general ; facts with respect to the nature 
of mind, either as to its essence or faculties ; facts 
of the moral nature ; or facts of God, and of the 
hopes and fears of men, awakened under his gov- 
ernment. Whatever their kind, if they seem to 
bear on the question it will be^reasonable to con- 
sider them. Possibly they may pilot us through the 
gloom, and reveal to us a haven on a far-away coast 
which our sensual eye cannot discern. 

2. The evidence must be, if neither addressed 
to the senses nor to the reason in its inductive 



26 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

function, direct testimony of persons who have 
information in the premises either from personal 
knowledge or knowledge communicated to them 
by those who had real information. The eviden- 
tial value of such testimony, as in every other case, 
will depend on the competence of the witness, 
and the character of the facts alleged. If all had 
immediate knowledge, the testimony would be uni- 
versal. If any have, it may be as conclusive as if it 
were universal. 

We claim that we have these two branches of 
evidence ; that there arc facts which warrant the 
induction, and that we have testimony direct of 
competent witnesses. In the treatment we will ob- 
serve the order indicated, considering first those 
facts which warrant the induction. To bring out 
this branch of evidence in its full force -I must re- 
turn to the examination of the proofs that man is 
a spirit shrined in a body, the spirit being the true 
self. 

The only possible doubt is on the point that he 
is a spirit. The proposition asserts, not simply that 
there are these two parts to man — an organism of 
earth and an indwelling spirit — but that the deep- 
est truth, the very essence of his manhood, is that 
he is a spirit. Properly speaking, he is a spiritual 
being, and the earthy form is external and merely 
instrumental to him. This is what we are required 
to prove. 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 2*J 

There will be no dispute that the man is the self- 
conscious person — the ego. The only possible con- 
troversy must arise around this point — is that self- 
conscious person identical with the earthy form, or 
is it distinct from it and master over it? What we 
hope to prove is, that it is distinct. 

Before we proceed with the arguments, there are 
some embarrassments which ought to be noted — 
things which, if we be not on our guard, will con- 
stantly mislead us, and prevent us from reaching 
the truth. Such are these : a constant habit r from 
childhood, of calling the form the man, and of think- 
ing it is so. This idea has so grown with our growth 
and strengthened with our strength, that it is next 
to impossible to break its power; and, while we live 
in the mere plane of the senses, as most of us do 
always, it seems to be true. It requires an effort to 
rise above the delusion — and an effort to which 
minds unaccustomed to reflection are unequal. 

The form is the most obvious part, and is so won- 
drously near to us, and so mixed up with our experi- 
ences, that we do not see exactly how it is that it is 
not us. It cleaves to us with such tenacity that we 
cannot disentangle ourselves from it for a moment. 
It interpenetrates us so that its affections seem to be- 
come our very own — its hurt our hurt — its balm our 
balm. It goes-, we go ; it stays, we stay ; it is sick, 
we are sick ; it convalesces, we recover ; oxygen and 
hydrogen dc not more clearly blend in the globule 



28 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

of dew, than we with the form. Is it any marvel 
that we find it quite impossible to discriminate the 
self from it ? Yet nothing is more certain than that 
they are two — completely and utterly dissimilar; 
and the person is the one and not the other. 

There are reasons in the nature, functions, and 
probable destiny of the person, why, for the present, 
it should be so intimately united with the form. The 
great fact in the copartnership is, that the spirit pos- 
sesses all the personal endowments, and the form is 
merely subject and instrumental — but each has an 
identity of its own, in which the other has no partici- 
pation whatever. The life of the spirit is its power 
to think, and feel, and will ; the life of the form is 
its power to digest and assimilate food, and build up 
tissue. The aliment of the spirit is knowledge, that 
of the form is vegetable and animal substance. The 
spirit thrills with the sense of beauty, and goodness, 
and truth ; the form trembles and dilates with nerv- 
ous excitement, under touch and sound. The spirit 
is invisible and impalpable ; the form is visible and 
tangible. The spirit grows by increase of thought ; 
the form by increase of bulk and weight. The 
spirit loves or hates, rejoices or sorrows ; the form 
sways and bends with sympathetic nervous affection. 
Thus we perceive a marked and absolute difference 
between the two in all their characteristics, phe- 
nomenal and essential. They have absolutely noth- 
ing in common. They are no further similar or 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 29 

identical than this, that, for the present, they dwell 
together, and serve each other ; and the union 
seems an end and is for an end. 

In the end served it is discernible that the form is 
for the spirit as servant and instrument. The spirit 
uses it, and for a time, at least, needs it. And in this 
connection several economical facts appear, still fur- 
ther marking their difference, and indicating the pre- 
eminence and personal and regal dignity of the spirit 
over the form. The form is wholly destitute of power 
of any kind ; it could neither begin nor continue 
action or motion of itself: even its vital automatic 
action within itself is not of itself, but of some exter- 
nal power : it would not continue to exist as a form 
for any considerable time if left to itself; it must be 
fed, and clothed, and doctored vigilantly or it would 
rapidly run to ruin; it is idiotic and beastly; it 
neither sees, nor hears, nor tastes; it is purely an in- 
strument and servant. The spirit, on the other hand, 
is a proprietor and master. He does not, indeed, 
create the form — that is done for him — but he uses it. 
He is quick and powerful and discerning ; he discov- 
ers food, and clothing, and medicine ; and compels 
the idiotic form to cook, and weave, and compound 
them for its own preservation. He contrives shelter 
for it, and drives it in from the inclement weather. 
He forecasts, and makes it, without knowing why it 
does it, build barns and cribs and fill them with 
food for the ensuing want : he economizes and lays 



30 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

aside capital for the rainy day ; if the form gets out 
of order — becomes lame, or dyspeptic, or rheumatic 
— he sends for a doctor ; if it loses a limb he invents 
one and repairs the loss ; if its eye is weak or insuffi- 
cient he creates a secondary visual instrument ; and 
in a thousand other ways he superintends and sup- 
plies the incessant and nameless wants of his per- 
ishable and helpless companion. Much of his time 
and thought and power are employed in this inferior 
kind of work, but not without reason. He needs 
the service of the form in return. He cares for it 
because he intends to use it for his own purposes, 
or because he must have its offices in reaching his 
own higher and nobler ends. lie wants to see and 
hear, for by seeing and hearing the world of knowl- 
edge opens to him — he cannot afford to be deaf and 
blind ; he wants to travel, to visit foreign lands, he 
cannot afford to have it crippled and bedridden : in 
a word, he commands its feet to carry him from 
place to place for business or pleasure ; he com- 
mands its hands to execute, in stone or metal or pig- 
ment, his ideals of beauty; to write and blazon his 
thoughts ; to carry on his industries and arts ; to 
build ships, that he may navigate the seas ; to con- 
struct highways of iron, that he may traverse the 
continents ; to build electric bridges across the world, 
that he may hold converse with people of all zone:< 
and climes. He does all this for his own ends, 
simply using the form as the instrument by which 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 3 1 

to accomplish his manifold wishes and conveni- 
ences. 

But while man's power over the instrument is so 
great, it is not complete. He that made it and con- 
tinues it for his use, making it dependent on him in 
many ways, did not subject it utterly. He can em- 
ploy its hands and feet, and eyes and ears, but he has 
no power over its digestive processes or heart beats, 
or any of its organic functions. For all uses of serv- 
ice, it is perfectly responsive to his volitions ; but be- 
yond that, he has no more power over it than he 
has over any other alien substance. All its vital 
processes are under the control of some other mind, 
whose existence and agency he perceives, but whom 
his consciousness cannot reach. Thus we perceive 
by this simple statement of facts, which lie on the 
surface of our being, that man is dual, and that his 
spirit is self-conscious lord and master, and his or- 
ganism an objective and external thing. 

The superficial view — the sense view — is, that man 
is what you see, what you touch, what you handle 
— this shrine or organism. That is all that sense 
gives you. It is the view that comes first to every 
observer. For sense-facts come first to cognition ; 
and to the unreflecting, remain the most powerful 
throughout life. Were this sense-view true, I should 
be constrained to say, there is not a particle of evi- 
dence, within the reach of man, that he is an im- 
mortal being ; for there are no facts which point to 



32 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

a return to life of the body which is destroyed. We 
must be able, therefore, to show that what you see 
is not the man, or abandon all idea of his immor- 
tality on rational grounds. 

The task which I now undertake is, to show that 
the essential man is an invisible quantity, which 
never comes within the range of sense, cognition, 
or observation, and is detected by sense only as it 
comes to manifestation in some visible form of ac- 
tivity — the being himself always remaining invisible. 

Man, as a material being, is simply an instru- 
mental arrangement or organism for the use of the 
deeper man, which is a spiritual being, and is sepa- 
rate and distinct from the material organization ; as 
separate and distinct as from any other tools which 
he uses and employs. I say as distinct, though 
more nearly related. The body is an instrument 
furnished him by his Maker, and put immediately 
under his will. It is the only tool which he can di- 
rectly use, or which his will or personal power can 
immediately move. By it he constructs and uses 
all other instruments. He commands the hand to 
make and employ them ; but he is as really distinct 
from the hand as he is from the saw, or hammer, or 
brush, or pen ; he has power over the secondary 
instrument, indirectly, by means of the primary or 
divinely furnished instrument. He thinks. This is 
his first properly personal act: then he desires to 
put his thoughts in some visible form. Instinctive 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 33 

impulses of the nature of desires may precede think- 
ing, but they are not properly personal acts. He 
can only give visible form to his thought by a sign : 
to make that he must use the body. He would 
make the thought permanently visible ; he uses the 
body again ; but he must subsidize some other in- 
strument besides, so he commands the hand to 
make a pen, and then directs it how to use it, and 
a volume is produced. All action subsequent to 
thought and volition is purely instrumental, and we 
see the existence of the actor only in the use of the 
instrument. That is my theory. How shall I prove 
it? For it is a vain thing to assert it if a reason 
cannot be alleged for it ; and it is a vain thing to 
allege a reason which is not sufficient to carry con- 
viction, for it is the intent of teaching to set before 
the mind the grounds of a conclusion. 

The grand, fundamental distinction here is, a dis- 
tinction between spirit and matter, and I turn to 
that for a moment. It is wider than the distinc- 
tion in human nature, because it pervades other 
ranks of being and all beings. My point, then, is, 
that there are two kinds of being. One is spirit, 
the other is matter ; one is form, the other makes 
form, and uses or employs form. 

To make this appear I must have your atten- 
tion. Spirit is the factor of thought. , It has 
other characteristics, but this suffices now. I shall 

not dwell upon the point that mere matter is not 
5 



34 BE YOND THE GRA VE. 

a factor of thought. For the present I postu- 
late that ; and further, for the present I postulate 
that matter does not become a factor of thought 
when organized. If thought be in existence, the 
kind of being which manifests it and exercises it is 
therefore distinct from mere gross matter, and, also, 
from organized matter; and, further, I now postu- 
late that behind or antecedent to every organism, 
and necessary to it, is a thought-factor. I state 
it with the confidence with which I would state any 
mathematical axiom. I mean to affirm that ante- 
cedent to any organism, and necessary thereto, and 
distinct from the organism, there must be a thought- 
factor. I shall now proceed to illustrate it, begin- 
ning with things that we are acquainted with. 

I hold in my hand an organized machine, a 
common time-piece, a Geneva watch. Now, what 
you know of this is its existence in my hand. 
Sense gives you nothing more. Sense tells you 
nothing of its history at all, nothing of its trans- 
formation from crude ores to this beautiful highly 
polished machine, and never can. Sense gives you 
nothing at all but the fact of its existence. But 
reason pursues the question, " Whence came the 
machine ? " It raises the question, and evolves a 
history of the facts in the case. By its investiga- 
tions it determines that some time this little ma- 
chine existed in unorganized and separate parts, 
distributed in the unliving elements of the world ; 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 35 

and, that by a process it has come into this present 
form. And reason, not sense, tells us what that 
process was. It tells us that before the machine 
existed as it is now found, there was a thinker who 
existed, and who thought it out. Primarily it was 
an idea. First, in thought he shaped the elements, 
adjusted them, fastened them after their adjust- 
ment, put the key in, and wound up the thought- 
machine, and it went, ticking away time. Then he 
said : " I will make this thought-machine concrete. 
I will make this idea real." And to make it real he 
must resort to instrumentalities, for he is an imma- 
terial being, whose only function in the case is to 
think and will. I do not speak of his other func- 
tions, but they are all non-material to this state- 
ment. His primal function is to think out the 
machine. Having thought it by volition, he puts 
himself into relations with the materiality, and 
evolves it and reveals himself to others. The fin- 
ished machine is the flower of his thought. Neith- 
er himself nor his thought is, nor ever can be, 
seen. But the completed watch shows that he 
is, and that he is a thinker — it reveals him. He 
constructs out of gross material, but according to 
a pattern not in the things, but a pattern in him- 
self, an ideal pattern. He saws, and files, and 
pounds, and hammers until he gets all the draughts 
that are in idea in him transferred to matter, and 
then he puts them together, and pins them up, and 



36 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

we have the concrete machine. Now what I affirm 
is, first, that the completed machine is so dependent 
on that thought-factor that it could not exist with- 
out it ; and, second, that the thought is necessarily 
older than the product. And I affirm, further, that 
what is true in that case is necessarily true in every 
case in which there is an organic existence — in which 
there is an arrangement of things in parts to answer 
particular ends. The result — that thought lies be- 
hind organism, is found to be an eternal and neces- 
sary law. 

There is a form of materialism which, while it rec- 
ognizes the existence of thought and of a thought- 
factor, says that the thought-factor is the brain. It 
admits that gross, common, unorganized matter has 
no such power; but asserts that when matter is or- 
ganized and brought into a certain condition or tex- 
ture, it acquires the power to think and plan. Were 
this theory true, which it is not, then all the thought 
which has ever been, or ever could be, must ema- 
nate from organized matter. But if organization 
is the sole fountain of thought, then the question 
arises, Whence came the organization which origi- 
nates thought? If thought must precede and orig- 
inate common crude organism, and if they always 
point to antecedent thought for their explanation, 
how did this highest organism of all — the brain — 
come into existence without a thought behind it ? 
If the brain generates all thought, what generates 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 37 

the brain? The case is like this: An instrument, 
say a hand-organ, grinds out a tune, and the ques- 
tion is raised whence came the tune, and the answer 
is, It is produced by the organ. But the question 
returns, How did it get into the organ ? It could 
not get there had it not been put there ; but 
then it originally existed not in the organ, but in 
the being who put it in the organ. In a word, be- 
fore the organ can evolve the tune, the organ must 
have a maker, and it must be made with exact fit- 
ness to produce the tune, and the maker must him- 
self know the tune before he can make the instru- 
ment that will produce it. The brain represents 
the organ ; the thought, the tune ; and the question 
is, How did the power to think get into the brain, 
and whence came the brain itself? If the brain be 
the fountain of all human thought, what is the 
fountain of the older and greater thought which 
devised the brain in order that it might deliver the 
lesser thought, and which produced all other or- 
ganisms, of which the universe is full, from the 
globule of water or grain of sand to the sidereal 
splendors — from the radiate to man — which certainly 
did not emanate from the human brain. Are we 
to understand that there is some great brain some- 
where that produced all them ? What produced 
that great brain, and whence did it get its power 
to make as well as think? 

Let any man begin to enumerate the products of 



38 BEYOXD THE GRAVE. 

human thought, the things that have come out of 
human brains, or human intellect, the brain being 
simply the pole of human instrumentality; let him 
begin to look abroad over man's world of organized 
things, and he must become amazed sometimes, and 
feel like bowing down in worship before this exalted 
form of being that humanity is, which, when intro- 
duced to existence, had simple faculty, and nothing 
else ; which, thus equipped, has gone into the in- 
vestigation and study of the system of things about 
it, and has evolved out of crude matter that great 
world of man's invention and man's production, 
which almost rivals in its complexity and sublimity 
the vast worlds of God's production and creation. 
Go through the world of machinery ; investigate 
towns and cities ; the museums, and libraries, and 
laboratories, and art galleries, and contrivances by 
which men explore the realm of God — and you 
stand in awe before the majesty of the human intel- 
lect. 

If now I push myself behind man's works into 
the higher organisms of nature, I find that the en- 
tire universe is a complex of organisms from base to 
finial — an organism of organisms ; and if the power to 
organize is found in the brain, it must have existed 
in the creator of the brain, who endowed it with the 
power. 

I find that organization begins at the base, and 
includes every atom. There is not a grain of sand 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 39 

that is not a high organization. It is the product 
of a combination, or a complex of original elements 
which produce it under a law. A drop of water is 
an organism produced by a law that is immutable 
in nature, found written upon two separate and dis- 
tinct elements, oxygen and hydrogen, by which 
eighty-eight parts of one and twelve parts of the 
other, wherever they meet, under suitable condi- 
tions, unite and produce one result ; a law written 
upon them, so that organization arises from the 
very foundation to the topmost parts of the universe. 
Passing by for the present the structure of the 
heavens, so marvelous for its ingenuity, so vast in 
its sweep, and infinite in its power, immeasurably 
surpassing all human conception, we turn to the 
inferior contrivances which appear on our globe. 
Nothing is more certain than that there was a time 
when none of these existed. The strata in the 
earth's crust record their advent. There must have 
been a cause behind them. That cause was a thinker, 
for they are patterned after an idea. Before they 
could come to reality they were necessarily ideas, as 
in the case of the watch. Take any of the vegetable 
forms, as they exist in almost infinite variety — or 
any of the animal forms, from the microscopic in- 
sect to the highest creature — and each will be found 
to be a deft exact complex of unity, more ingenious 
by far than any human production, and necessarily 
displaying greater thought-power. 



40 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

Now as behind the works of human art I place 
a thinker, so here I must place a mind, which first 
schemed in idea all these forms of vegetable life, 
and all these forms of animal life, and said, " I will 
make these things to be real." And by volition, 
and an exercise of power, that mind has concreted 
a living and organized system of things, primitively 
in seeds or germs, from which all spring. Now I 
turn to the larger system of the heavens and the 
earth. More primitive than these living forms— 
farthest back of all manifestation— older than the 
oldest works— I find that there is a deft organism 
more complete in the exposition of its perfection 
than the celebrated watch, made of worlds whose 
wheels are the invisible and intangible paths which 
the suns and satellites pursue through the heavens, 
perfect in their adjustment, unvarying in their mo- 
tions, and changeless in their inter-orbital relations, 
overspreading an abyss immeasurable to imaffina- 
tion even. This magnificent display, order, and 
power had a beginning. This is often disputed, 
It is said that it is eternal, and need not, cannot, 
be accounted for. If this were true, it would not 
disprove the eternity of a being who possesses in- 
telligence, for there can be no concrete intelligence, 
or intelligible order, without a being in whom the 
intelligence is. But it is not so — the organized ma- 
terial universe is not eternal. This is a most im- 
portant point, and we must delay to establish it, 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 4 1 

that it may stand, not as simply an assertion, but as 
a demonstrated fact. We say demonstrated, for we 
shall prove beyond dispute that the assumption of 
the eternity of the universe not only is not probably 
true, but that it is impossible it should be true. 
The essential idea of eternal is unbegun existence. 
We postulate that no order of succession can be 
eternal. That is to say, no kind or arrangement of 
being which includes periodic changes can be eter- 
nal. The changeless only can be eternal. There 
is no such thing as an infinite number, or an infi- 
nite series, by the addition or accumulation of which 
the eternal can be reached, or to whose sum the 
eternal can be equated. For the basis of number 
is unity, and that which is made up of units or de- 
veloped out of units can be enlarged or diminished. 
And the sum can never be so great that it may not 
be twice as great, or a million times greater, or any 
other number of times greater, and never so small 
that it cannot be divided down to unity, and then 
be sunk to an infinitesimal fraction. 

Thus any possible series, the numbers of which 
are limited by something preceding and something 
following, must be finite. Of any possible series, 
there must be one member which antedates all the 
rest — one which stands at the head. All those which 
follow the first must have had a beginning. The first 
must also have had a beginning unless it is unlike all 

the rest, and, therefore, not a true member of the 
6 



42 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

series. But if the first differ from all the rest in 
that it had no beginning, then back of the series is 
a true eternal — the first. Behind all beginnings 
there must be one unbegun. 

Now I am to prove that the present order of the 
universe had a beginning, and so cannot be eternal. 
For the elucidation of the point, we may take 
any part of the universal system. We select the 
earth. The thesis is to prove that its present 
is not eternal — once was not — and at some time 
began. The fact is, the earth has a definite relation 
to the sun. It has two motions. First, a motion 
around the sun in what is called its orbit — a uniform 
path, in the form of an elongated circle or ellipse. 
This orbit it travels at a fixed rate of motion, com- 
pleting the circuit in a year of three hundred and 
sixty-five days and a fragment of a day. Its one 
position during the revolution causes its two poles 
alternately to be toward the sun, and this, with the 
ellipse of its orbit, brings about four seasons in 
each revolution, or in each year. But it has, also, 
another motion. While passing through the great 
circle it unintermittently revolves around its own 
axis once in every twenty-four hours. This motion 
causes it to present all its surfaces to the sun once 
in each revolution. The side toward the sun is al- 
ways illuminated by the sun's light, the obverse side 
is always dark. Thus every part of the surface is 
light and dark a certain number of each twenty- 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 43 

four hours. That is the order. I am to show that 
it is impossible that that order should be eternal, 
or that it never had a beginning. This I demon- 
strate in two ways, and, if I succeed, prove not 
simply that possibly the system once started, but 
that it is impossible that it did not start. 

First. In every revolution of the earth in its solar 
orbit it revolves three hundred and sixty-five times 
in its axilar orbit ; the number of days is three hun- 
dred and sixty-five times the number of years that 
the earth has existed. There has not, then, been 
an infinite number of years, unless there has been 
three hundred and sixty-five times an infinite num- 
ber of days, which is absurd. But if there has been 
less than an infinite number of years, the number is 
finite, and the result is finite, not eternal ; and, in 
the order existing, this is an eternal necessity, that 
is, it is impossible it should ever be otherwise. 

Second. Each solar revolution is subsequent to 
some other solar revolution. This is a necessary 
fact in the order. Subsequence thus enters into 
each revolution, unless some one revolution was not 
subsequent to another ; but subsequence cannot in- 
clude the eternal ; and, if there was one that was not 
subsequent, it had a beginning, for it comprised 
only three hundred and sixty-five days ; the whole 
series, then, had a beginning ; but nothing that be- 
gins can be eternal. 

Third. At this point of land, called Fair Point, un- 



44 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

der the order of axilar motion there has always 
been alternately either day or night several hours 
out of each twenty-four. Now, in this order, either 
day or night must necessarily have been first, for they 
do not co-exist at the same time. If day was first 
the first night had a beginning, but then all events 
subsequent to that first night falls within a time 
that had a beginning, and that first day that pre- 
ceded that first night, also, had a beginning, or it 
was eternal, and behind the order of alternate day 
and night, there was one eternal day. I assert that 
this is of the nature of a demonstration, and estab- 
lishes the point that the present order of things has 
a beginning of necessity. Again, I will give an- 
other illustration. The position I refute is, that 
the order of nature has had no beginning. My 
self-imposed duty is to show, not that possibly it 
had a beginning, but that it is impossible it had 
not. Its structure necessitates the idea and fact of 
a beginning. Take so humble a thing as maize or 
corn that grows in your field. The order is, that 
the grain docs not come except on the stalk. The 
stalk must exist in order to, and before, the grain. 
But so neither docs the stalk exist without the 
grain. The grain must be before the stalk, and in 
order to it. There is never a grain without a stalk 
to produce it, or a stalk without a grain to produce 
it. But it is impossible that this should always 
have been so. There must of necessity have been 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 45 

a time when this series was set a-going by the crea- 
tion of a stalk without a grain, or a grain without a 
stalk, or they were created at one time, the grain and 
stalk together. The same argument will apply to 
all the series in the universe — to all things that have 
parts or motions coming in succession. 

Take another illustration. This time it shall be 
from our own species. The present order is, that 
each man that exists had a father and mother who 
existed before him. There can be no human being 
without a father and mother ; but it is certain that 
some one pair of human beings must have existed 
without either father or mother — but then the or- 
der is not eternal. There was a beginning: to all 

o o 

those who sprang from father and mother. The 
first pair was either eternal, or was at some time 
created, without father or mother ; but in either case 
the order is different from the present ; and for the 
new departure there must be a creative cause, and 
the cause must be an intelligent cause, as the newly 
instituted order is an intelligible order. 

But if there be no escape from these conclusions 
on principles of reason, the ascertainable facts are 
all in their support. It is easy to unravel the entire 
material system, and show that it had a beginning. 
The geological records are explicit. The successive 
strata contain, in exact order, the entire memorials 
of life. We find when each race assumed its place 
in the developing order or series. We descend from 



46 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

the present, or superficial, crust in which the me- 
morials of existing races are contained, to the dawn 
of life and crystallization itself. Below the monu- 
mental remains of vital energy we come to a more 
ancient azoic world; demonstrating that all living 
force and products thereof had a beginning. This 
is now practically undisputed. 

Nothing can be more plain or certain than 
this: — That the present order of the universe is 
a time order. It has the force of an axiom, that no 
aggregation of a series, in which the parts have a 
beginning, can be as a whole unbegun. The be- 
ginningness which characterizes each part must 
characterize the aggregate. This great universe 
had a beginning. But if it had a beginning, once 
it was not. Then, when it did not exist, it could 
not begin itself, for non-existence cannot act cre- 
atively. But then there must have been some being 
back of it who had no beginning, and that being 
must have possessed power to cause it. But the 
effect can manifest nothing that was not in the 
cause. The conspicuous thing in the effect is plan 
and power; then the cause must have exerted power 
and exhibited thought. Then the power and thought 
are eternal, and the spirit-factor is more ancient 
than all organized existence. Then thought and 
power cannot be the result of organized matter, for 
it creates all organized matter. Nothing that be- 
gins is without a beginner, and nothing that can be 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 47 

translated or interpreted by intelligence as an intelli- 
gible order, can emanate from an unintelligent cause. 
Is it said, All that we can know of the system of 
the universe is the system itself — the solid and real 
things ? I answer, We know the thought in them, 
as really as we know the things. It is no more cer- 
tain that the things exist than it is that their ar- 
rangement expresses thought ; and therefore that 
he that made them according to the pattern of 
thought was himself a thinker. I answer again, The 
things which we call real, meaning that they have 
substance of being, are not the most real. They 
are, indeed, but shadows — these everlasting mount- 
ains of granite — these solid globes. He only is real 
who made them. They are but coming and van- 
ishing tokens of the infinite power beneath them, 
which only hath root of being in itself. If there 
be any deduction of reason that may be relied on 
as certain, it is that the bottom and eternal fact 
of the universe is a living, intelligent, free, personal 
Spirit. 

The proof is not less strong, that man is a spirit. 
We see the eternal Spirit, not directly, for he is in- 
visible, but we see him in his works. The real man 
is just as invisible as his Maker, for he is made after 
the divine pattern. We see him, also, in his works. 
He knows himself only in consciousness, and con- 
sciousness asserts that he is not a mere clod of earth, 
but that he is a spirit. Consciousness absolutely 



48 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

knows nothing of the self, except that it thinks, 
feels, and wills. Every thing else — the body as much 
as any thing — consciousness declares is not the self, 
but is objective to the self. If man is not a spirit, 
consciousness is a cheat. 

That old Greek who paraded the market-places 
of Athens with a lighted candle at noonday to find 
a man, was not a wise philosopher, else he had 
known that man does not appear under a candle- 
light, or any other light. Man is invisible. I see 
where you live. I can tell when you are at home 
by the mysterious reflection on the window. I see 
that you are now within. You are radiating your- 
self, projecting your shadow, upon that mysterious 
mirror which the infinite made capable of reflect- 
ing the impalpable presence of a spirit, even of a 
thought. I know by the candid and inquisitive 
earnestness of your expression, by the strange luster 
of your eyes, and the flush and glow of your coun- 
tenances, that you arc now busy with my thought. 
I do not see your essential self, nor do you see me; 
but it is impossible for you to doubt my existence, 
or for me to doubt yours. I know, by conscious- 
ness, that I am ; by observation, I know that you 
are; and by reflection, I see that we are essentially 
alike. The house in which I live, and from which 
during life I never depart, is also, besides being a 
dwelling, a deft machine of manifold adaptation 
and power, which I use in numberless ways for the 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 49 

service of my wishes. I command it to take me 
about the world, and show me things. I want to 
see Europe, or Asia, or Africa, and I cannot go 
without being carried. And if I could go without 
being carried it would do me no good, for I have 
been so adjusted that I need the machine, not sim- 
ply to transport me from place to place, but to en- 
able me to see and communicate with objects about 
me. I must always, while I live in this world, have 
it with me, and fortunately, cannot leave it be- 
hind. I command it and it moves, walks, runs to 
do my bidding, wears itself out for me. To save it 
from weariness, I invent coaches, sleighs, steam- 
ships, railroads, and other modes of conveyance, and 
set it to work to make them carry it about, and 
bring me with more speed and ease on my jour- 
neys. It is my slave — sometimes an expensive 
servant indeed, for I have to take care of it, and 
keep it in order. It cannot think for itself, so I 
must keep watch for it, clothe, feed, coddle, and 
doctor it, or it will speedily run to ruin. I want 
some delicate work executed — a deft piece of art, an 
exact piece of mechanism, writing, painting, sculpt- 
ure, wheels pivoted in diamonds, a mill, or a steam- 
ship, — any thing : I command the machine, and it 
obeys me — enters upon the work, and prosecutes it 
to the end. But it will not move except as I move 
it, any more than a file or chisel. In fact, it cannot 
stir without my command. I watch it, and put power 



50 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

into it, and when it comes to the delicate touch, if 
it shakes or trembles, I say, " Be steady; do it nice- 
ly." Am I not conscious that I am different from 
the instrument I am commanding and using? do I 
not know that I am not the flesh and blood that I 
am controlling? 

Then, thanks to the scientists, to the physiol- 
ogists, they tell me my machine is being repaired 
all the time — that it is going to pieces — and I know 
it very well ; that it takes only about seven years 
to make an entirely new one. Like the traditional 
jack-knife, which had successively lost all the 
original blades and handle, and yet, by gradually 
acquiring new ones, retained its identity, so my 
machine loses all its old parts, and acquires new, 
every seven or ten years. So I bow to my present 
machine and say: " You are about the sixth or sev- 
enth that I have had for my use, and the others 
have vanished away." But what I wish to call your 
attention to is, that while my machine goes, blades 
and handle, time after time, I stay. I do not go, 
I abide. 

The other day I was visiting a place to dedicate 
a church. In the early morning (it was spring) I 
was awakened by a weird and strange sound that 
stole through the open casement and roused me up — 
a sound that somehow thrills more deeply into my 
soul than any other sound in mere animate nature. 
It was the cooing of a dove. It came borne in on 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 5 I 

the morning air, and I listened. As I listened to 
its swell it choked me, almost broke my heart ; and 
in a moment I saw a dove on a broken limb of a 
walnut-tree standing by an old crooked lane, down 
by a worm-fence ; and I saw its bosom heaving as 
if its heart would break. I gazed at it. I was a 
little boy, standing on the yard-fence of my father's 
house. More than fifty years had. elapsed since that 
event, but it stood out before me that morning as 
if it had been but yesterday. By a strange law of 
association, starting with the early memory, I lived 
life over again. I went in and saw my mother, 
beautiful as she was in her young womanhood. She 
put her hands on my head, kissed me, and soothed 
my childish sorrow. I bowed at her knee and re- 
cited my infant prayers again. Then came early 
school days, and old playmates gathered about me, 
and old loves and joys were lived over ; creeks, 
hills, roads, lanes, fields, and woods familiar to child- 
hood, looked at me with their old familiar look, 
each alive and palpitating with precious memories. 
My cheeks were bedewed with tears, as the thrill- 
ing pictures with such strange vividness passed be- 
fore me. Voices of the long-since dead sounded on 
that still morning air ; I seemed to hear them call- 
ing over the gulf of half a hundred years, as they 
greeted me in that long ago. Then I was a young 
man. My college days were past. The wide world 
was before me. With anxious and trembling ex- 



52 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

pectation I was looking into the future, all uncer- 
tain of what might be its sorrows or successes. My 
horse was at the gate, my father's blessing sounded 
on my ear afresh, my mother's tearful farewell was 
repeated. I hastily mounted the horse and rode 
away. Then opened upon me the long journey of 
years up to that morning, stretching over seas, 
oceans, continents, almost the entire globe. Cities, 
towns, temples, museums, peoples, from every land 
which I had visited, rose up around me with minute 
exactness. I knew that I was the same self, through 
all the changes of all the years. The same that spring 
morning, though gray and scarred, that gazed with 
tearful sorrow on the moaning dove fifty years be- 
fore. My body had changed and many times van- 
ished away, but I abided ; the years had driven me 
from house to house, time and again, but they had 
not impaired me. That which abides is a spirit. 
Bodies change and die, only spirit remains. 

The spirit retains its treasure. Material wealth 
perishes; becomes cankered and moth-eaten, and 
takes to itself wings and flies away. Spirit treasures 
can neither be stolen nor consumed. 

Have you ever thought where you keep your 
treasures? There are picture galleries in the old 
world hung with beautiful pictures. I know a pict- 
ure gallery that is larger than the Louvre ; larger 
than the picture galleries of Dresden; larger, if you 
bring them all together, than the German, the French, 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 53 

the Italian, the English, and all the other galleries 
in the world ; a vast temple whose walls are hung 
with more beautiful pictures than any creations of 
the old masters ; but it is not built of stone, and 
the pictures are not made of paint or upon canvas : 
it is the picture gallery of my soul, where all things 
that I ever saw appear. They are not painted on 
material canvas, but they are painted somewhere. 
They live in thought, they hang in the great halls 
of memory, they glow in my mind ; and what I as- 
sert is, that that picture gallery, and that soul that 
looks upon these pictures, is not a material con- 
struction — the pictures are no photographs on ma- 
terial plates, piled up somewhere — not impressions 
on nerve surfaces. The light which illumines them 
is not material light. They are visible in the dark- 
est night. The eye that gazes on them is not a 
material eye. There is not a particle of materiality 
about the pictures, the halls where they are hung, 
or the beholder. 

That there is a spirit in man distinct from the 
body, is shown further from phenomena which ap- 
pear in him — phenomena which cannot be predi- 
cated of mere matter. We are sometimes asked to 
define what we mean by spirit. We can only an- 
swer, We mean by spirit a something — a real be- 
ing — which becomes known to us by phenomena 
utterly unlike those exhibited by matter. This def- 
inition is thought not to be satisfactory; but why 



54 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

not? If asked to define matter, we are in precisely 
the same predicament. We can only recite the 
names of certain phenomena, which the thing which 
we call matter exhibits, but we do not, therefore, 
complain that the definition is unsatisfactory. It 
is something which has form, color, weight, fluid- 
ity, solidity, length, breadth, thickness, special rela- 
tions through which certain forces play, and in 
which certain changes in motion or composition 
take place. That is all we can say about it. We 
do not therefore doubt that there is a something, 
a reality, back of the name, exhibiting the phe- 
nomena. If we know any thing, we know that 
reality of being and substance is where phenom- 
ena are. The cases are not in the least dissimilar. 
Both are known and described only as they appear 
in phenomena. This results from the nature of 
our mind. The phenomena indicate two distinct 
kinds of reality. We recite discrete classes of phe- 
nomena to define them. The class predicated of 
the one cannot be, and never is, predicated of the 
other. We have seen some of the terms by which 
we indicate matter. To indicate the reality which 
we call spirit, we must resort to the use of other 
terms of a totally different signification. It is a 
reality which appears to us as a thinking, feeling, 
willing something. Thus, and thus only, it makes 
itself known to us. It cannot be doubted that I 
know that there is a something which thinks, just 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 55 

as certainly and clearly as I do that there is some- 
thing which is round or square. If of the one 1 
cannot predicate form, or weight, or color, which I 
certainly cannot, of the other I can no more predi- 
cate thought, feeling, or will ; but of both I can 
predicate they are, because of certain discrete phe- 
nomena which they both exhibit. Precisely the 
same difficulties and necessities encompass both. 

But is it said, A thing without form and other 
qualities of matter is inconceivable ? we answer, 
That if by conceivable is meant picturable — drawn 
out before the imagination as a picture — then, cer- 
tainly, the immaterial cannot be conceived ; but, if 
by conceivable be meant, supposed to exist, then the 
immaterial can be conceived. Who ever saw, or 
can picture, the form, or color, or weight, of force, of 
thought, of memory, of hope, of fear, of love, of 
conscience, or of that of which these are manifes- 
tations? The simple fact is, we know these to exist, 
and as existing, we know that they proclaim a real- 
ity ; but a reality of which we cannot predicate any 
of the things we predicate of material substance. 
There are, then, two universes, or two hemispheres 
of one universe— the great material realm and the 
more exalted spiritual realm. One is inert, power- 
less, unconscious, but beautiful of form and color, 
varied in texture. and motion, massive and magnifi- 
cent ; the other has none of these, but is essential 
life, power, and consciousness. 



56 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

The self-conscious subject must be a self-centered, 
indivisible unit. Were it the body, or any part of 
it — say the brain — each part must be a sharer of the 
consciousness, and, in that case, it might be divided 
and subdivided, but this is impossible. The subject 
is a simple indivisible unit, which retains its identity 
permanently and unchangeably. The only things of 
which consciousness takes note are, thought, feeling, 
and volition ; and it notes these as states of the self- 
conscious subject, and notes nothing else of him. 
Thus, consciousness discloses simply a spirit. The 
self perceives form in objectives and other qualities, 
as hardness, color, gravity, and such things; but 
these it neither perceives nor is conscious of as pre- 
dicates of itself, or as in any proper sense belong- 
ing to the self-conscious subject. 

The self is free — it originates its own acts from 
within. It is conscious of the power of alternative 
action. This is a quality which no mere machine 
can possess, and which can never be predicated of 
matter as such. The power points to a unitary 
subject, and the consciousness is that the subject 
possessing it is one and indivisible, and identical 
through all its successive exercises. Each free act 
is the act of the same subject, and the series has 
no other relation than this, that they are the self- 
determined acts of the same being. 

There are other phases of the argument which 
we omit, deeming what has now been said suf- 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. S7 

ficient to establish the point in hand : Man is a 
spirit. 

The theory of common sense, thus announced in 
consciousness, and deducible by the reason and for- 
tified by the deepest philosophy yet attained, has 
also the sanction of revelation. The distinction is 
there clearly, frequently, and conspicuously made ; 
indeed, if the doctrine be not true the Bible is there- 
by shown to be fundamentally false. It appears in 
the exordium of Genesis, and is reiterated in the 
peroration of the Apocalypse, and pervades the 
whole volume. " And the Lord God formed man 
of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his 
nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living 
soul." That the distinction is here made is plain. 
There is an organism of dust, and an inbreathed 
soul. " Then shall the dust return to the earth as it 
was : and the spirit shall return unto God who gave 
it." "And fear not them which kill the body, but are 
not able to kill the soul : but rather fear him which 
is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." 
Matt, x, 28. It makes nothing against this, that 
the word soul is sometimes synonymous with breath 
or natural life. It is used in both senses, but its 
common signification is the equivalent of spirit, 
person, self, as distinct from the body. All readers 
of the holy Scriptures know that they maintain the 
distinction throughout with invariable consistency, 
and the spirit is always the person. It is the spirit 



58 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

that was created in the image of God ; that was 
put under law ; that had power to transgress ; that 
sinned and fell ; that is to give account to God ; 
that receives revelations. fC It is the spirit for whonO 
q atonement is made ; to whom pardon is offered ; 
who receives forgiveness and peace ; whose future 
is depicted in such impressive terms ; for the loss 
of which worlds would be no compensation ; whose 
salvation induced the divine incarnation. The body, 
throughout, holds a subordinate rank, and is made 
account of simply as an appendage of the spirit. 
If the Bible is divine the doctrine is true; and we 
have seen that it stands in its own right also. The 
older and the newer revelation have one trend, and 
speak with one voice. Here we rest so much of the 
discussion as is concerned with the question, Is man i 
\ a spirit t 

Assuming that the point is well made, we are 
prepared to advance to the main question, Is there 
evidence that he survives death ? But time will not 
permit us to enter upon that point now. It will be 
the subject-matter of the next lecture. At this 
point we rest the discussion for the present. 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 59 



LECTURE II. 

MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 

DOES the personal being, the spiritual self, 
perish with the destruction of its home, or 
does it become helpless with the overthrow of its 
machine? Many assert that it does. We will 
now adduce some of the reasons for believing the 
opposite. 

When you take the wires of the cage apart you 
do not hurt the bird, but help it. You let it out of 
its prison. How do you know that death does not 
help me when it takes the wires of my cage down ? 
that it does not release me, and put me into some 
better place, and better condition of life ? 

It is certain that no one knows that death is dis- 
astrous. It seems so, because it breaks present and 
valued plans, mars and wounds the affections, but 
possibly it is a great advantage. You see me up to 
the moment of death. Then I vanish from your 
sight. You cannot tell whither I go. When my 
body was alive you only knew of my existence by 
changes which I wrought in it and by it ; now that 
it is dead, I can make no more use of it. So much 
appears, nothing more. That I cease to exist is an 



60 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

unwarranted conclusion. There may be facts which 
point to the conclusion that I do not. 

But it is said, that if there is no proof that I cease 
to exist, at least it is certain that I become impo- 
tent ; that, as when alive, I could only act through 
the body; now that it is dead, I cannot act at all. 
This is an unwarranted assumption. In fact, for all 
that is known, I may be able to act with greater 
freedom and power. Death may introduce me to 
new conditions, of more noble and exalted forms of 
activity. The body may be to the spirit what the 
musical instrument is to the musician — probably is. 
What is the musical instrument to the musician ? 
It is the instrument from which he evolves to ex- 
ternal observation what is in him. You destroy the 
instrument, and you make it impossible for the mu- 
sician to evolve the music to external ears like 
yours ; but do you touch the musician himself, or 
destroy the music in him, when you destroy the 
instrument upon which he plays? Do you destroy 
the player necessarily ? Certainly not. How do 
you know that the case here is not one exactly like 
that? You have a lover. He or she comes, in the 
living instrument, in the magnetic touch, smile, 
glance of the eye, flush of the cheek — comes invested 
with warm flesh, and blood, and thrilled and thrill- 
ing nerves ; these are in the instrument, as the elec- 
tric spark is in the galvanic pile, so that its touch re- 
veals him. Take the instrument away ; are you sure 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEIXG. 6 1 

that you have destroyed the lover? Are you sure 
that you have touched that deeper being, who, 
though invisible and impalpable, even when pres- 
ent, nevertheless makes you feel him, and thrills 
and transports you with proof of his invisible love ? 
You have taken away the instrument through which 
he came and communicated with you ; but, possi- 
bly, you have put him in a condition by the change 
to communicate with somebody else in some other 
world, and, under other condition, to communicate 
again with yourself when you advance to higher de- 
velopment. There is no evidence, and no man can 
turn to a single proof, that the spirit, though it uses 
the body now, yea, even though now it is dependent 
on the body, will be so ultimately and in all stages 
of its life. The present earthly body was formed to 
bring us into relations with gross externality, and by 
means of that as media ', with other spirits like us, 
now invested with flesh ; and it serves that end ex- 
cellently well. But there are abundant reasons to be- 
lieve that there are higher ends to which these pre- 
liminary experiences are subsidiary; and that finally, 
that which was of use during this earthly state of ex- 
istence would by longer continuance become a hin- 
derance, shutting us away from those other spirits 
with whom we are to live, or these same spirits when 
their place and condition are changed. We are not 
able to do without it now, and we might not be 
able to do with it then. The telescope brings the 



62 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

distant star to us; but remove us to the star, and 
it would hinder our seeing it. 

I cannot see you without eyes, you cannot hear 
me without ears. There are certain things for the 
accomplishment of which we have bodies ; but there 
are some things that I can do without eyes, or with- 
out ears, or without any functional service of the sen- 
sorium. I know that in all activity the sensorium — 
the body— is always so related to the mind that what- 
ever the mind does, being in the body, and using the 
body, in some form the body touches it. But I go 
into my study, or I wander off into the woods; I shut 
my eyes, stop my ears, dull my senses, lock all the 
doors, go into my dumb-house, that is now all insu- 
lated from the universe, and sit down in my cham- 
ber of meditation. I pass up and stand before God, 
and worship and adore him. I look back over the 
storied memories of a lifetime. I enter into schemes 
of philosophy ; I go through processes of reflection ; 
I feel the power of duty; I study, and am thrilled 
with the revelation of glory. I am in a vast world 
adapted to me, where I do not have to consider the 
questions— the low, base, earthly questions— that 
anchor me down when I come back into the world, 
"What about dinner to-morrow?" "What about a 
suit of clothes?" "What about the field or work- 
shop?" I have got out of all that, and away from 
all that, showing that I live in two worlds. I live 
two lives. I live in a lower world of sense, that I 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 63 

must use in order that my machine may be kept in 
order and vigor. I have to raise corn, wheat, fruits 
— not because I want these things — I, that is, my true 
self, do not need them. I cannot use them, but my 
machine requires them ; it has a digestive apparatus 
made for them. I have nothing of the kind. They 
are adapted to build bone and flesh, and other tis- 
sue. My machine is made out of these, and needs 
a factor of them. I put my machine to work to 
cultivate them, and store them up for future use ; 
but it is all on the machine's account — for me only 
that I may have a good instrument for my use. 
The factories of the world, and commerce of the 
world, and almost all kinds of labor and mechan- 
ism, are for the machine, and their use is limited by 
and perishes with it : but there is a world where I 
live ; it has no factories, or plows, or railroads — has 
no need for them. It is the world of spirits, of God, 
and angels, and immortal men ; the world of truth, 
and beauty, and love, and worship ; the world of 
eternal friendships, of eternal progress in personal 
unfolding ; of joy without sorrow, where there ib no 
pain, or tears, or death ; where there is no need of 
the sun or moon, " for the Lord God is the light of 
it." I feel its attraction now. I am consciously drawn 
toward it. I seem now to hear the deep diapason, 
the roll of its deathless music. That is my world, 
and I am certain to go to it. Some day I shall drop 
the machine and take wing. 



64 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

This higher life of reflection, of memory, of affec- 
tion, of worship, of love of the beautiful and good, 
of communion with truth, and with spirits of like 
sympathies, the grandest and best activities, may 
be carried forward out of a body, and certainly with 
great advantage without such a body as this. 

Since the preceding lecture my attention has 
been called to two points raised in the minds of 
several intelligent and candid hearers. I was not 
at all surprised that they were raised. I can, of 
course, only make a brief reference to them. One 
note suggested that the argument presented in 
the former lecture seemed to prove too much, in 
that it proved a spiritual nature in all inferior ani- 
mals, the assumption being that these exhibited 
thought in the same way that man does. Now I 
cannot go into a discussion about instinct, but will 
furnish some hints that may serve as data, upon 
which you may proceed. A hand-organ that grinds 
out accurately six or ten tunes expresses just as much 
intelligence as the lady who should sit at the piano 
and play the tunes. If there is any intelligence in 
the tune, or underlying the tune, it underlies the tune 
performed by the hand-organ just as much as the tune 
performed on the instrument by the living being. 
The difference is this : the hand-organ has intelli- 
gence in it that is not its own, but is the intelligence 
of the man who made it. The tune played upon 
the instrument has a personal intelligence in it, and 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 6$ 

it is the intelligence of the person who performs the 
tune. Now when we look into the world of animal 
creations there is unmistakable intelligence displayed 
by every animal, from the most inferior microscopic 
insect to the highest animal organization. But the 
question is, whether it is the personal property of 
the animal, or whether it has been concreted in it 
from an intelligence outside. I shall not undertake 
to discuss that question. I, however, have an opin- 
ion about it ; and it is, that in so far as instinctive 
action is personal, it is from the divine personality — ■ 
all instinctive action is divine action in some form. 
If any man can convince me that a bee passes 
through personal processes of self-consciousness, 
and reflection, and thought, when it makes the 
most perfect piece of work ever turned out in this 
world, in the most perfect conformity to mathemat- 
ical principles, as the mechanic does when he makes 
a watch, I will believe that the bee is as much a 
person as he is. But if the bee acts under the guid- 
ance of some other intelligence, I will believe that 
the bee is no more a person than the hand-organ. 
That is all I will say about that. 

The second point of difficulty raised, is upon a 
matter to which I attach very great importance, 
that of the discrete existence of the soul as distinct 
from the body. The argument advanced on that 
point I believe is conclusive. I have not heard it 
called in question, but my answer to the assumption 



66 BEYOND THE CRAVE. 

that the soul is dependent upon the body for the 
performance of its functions, another question en- 
tirely which I raised, it is thought was not clear. I 
am asked still further to relieve the point. I dwell, 
therefore, for a moment upon it. 

That the soul is dependent upon the human or- 
ganism for its activity in the present state, to almost 
the entire extent, is beyond all question. The soul 
comes into the possession, or first use, of its power 
through the body, and never could come to know 
itself, or to have any thought at all, so far as we 
know, but by its connection with the body. Through 
the sensorium the sensible world is mediated to the 
indwelling spirit ; it becomes cognizant of external 
things, and thus it has first activity ; it sees, or 
hears, or touches, and is set a-going. But for that 
it never would be set a-going, so far as we know. 

It is another fact that when the body, which is the 
instrument through which the mind acts, becomes 
diseased, it suffers in its power of action. A blow 
upon the head — and that has been used a great 
deal by those who think the brain secretes thought 
— a blow upon the head may result in perfect un- 
consciousness and total inactivity of spirit. So far 
as we are cognizant, all diseases which affect the 
substance of the brain — softening of the brain, or 
any thing of that kind — will affect the activity of 
the soul. That is beyond all question. Now there 
is a question remaining — Whether this fact proves 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 67 

that the soul is dependent entirely upon the organ- 
ism, or whether it is partially dependent upon it in it? 
present condition ; whether, if it were taken out of 
the body, it might not carry on its processes better 
than it does in the body? That is a point which is 
not at all settled, and we have no means of settling 
it, except upon general inference. But let us re- 
member that the body is the mediator of activity 
to the soul simply with relation to the external 
world. So far as we know it serves no purpose at 
all toward the supersensible world. It helps me to 
see, it helps me to hear, it helps me to feel ; but 
these all relate, to the material world ; and, so far as 
we can see, the body mediates no other form of ac- 
tivity to the soul. 

The argument in support of the immortality of 
the soul, founded on the mutations of animal life, 
has been thus forcibly stated by Lord Brougham, 
in his "Discourse on Natural Theology:" " The 
strongest of all arguments, both for the separate 
existence of mind and for its surviving the body, 
remains, and it is drawn from the strictest induction 
of facts. The body is constantly undergoing change 
in all its parts. Probably no person of the age of 
twenty has one single particle in any part of his 
body which he had at ten, and still less does any 
portion of the body he was born with continue to 
exist in or with him. All that he before had has 
entered into new combinations, forming parts of 



68 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

other men, or of animals, or of vegetable or mineral 
substances, exactly as the body he now has will 
afterward be resolved into new combinations after 
his death. Yet the mind continues one and the 
same, ' without change or shadow of turning.' If 
the strongest argument to show that the mind per- 
ishes with the body, nay, the only argument, be, as 
it indubitably is, derived from the phenomena of 
death, the fact to which we have been referring af- 
fords an answer to this. For the argument is, that 
we know of no instance in which the mind has ever 
been known to exist after the body. Now, here 
is exactly the same instance desiderated, it being 
manifest that the same process which takes place 
on the body, more suddenly, at death, is taking 
place more gradually but as effectually in the result, 
during the whole of life, and that death itself does 
not more completely resolve the body into its ele- 
ments, and form it into new combinations, than 
living fifteen or twenty years destroys, by like reso- 
lution and combination, the self-same body And 
yet, after all those years have elapsed, and the 
former body has been dissipated and formed into 
new combinations, the mind remains the same as 
before, exercising the same memory and conscious- 
ness, and so preserving the same personal identity, 
as if the body had suffered no change at all. Here, 
then, we have that proof so much desired — the 
existence of the soul after the dissolution of the 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 69 

bodily frame with which it was connected. The two 
cases cannot, in any soundness of reasoning, be dis- 
tinguished ; and this argument, therefore — one of 
pure induction — derived partly from physical sci- 
ence through the evidence of our senses, partly from 
psychological science by the testimony of our con- 
sciousness, appears to prove the possible immortality 
of the soul almost as rigorously as if one were to 
rise from the dead." 

I yesterday called your attention to the fact that 
when the mind has once been started, when it has 
been set with ideas of external things through per- 
ception, it comes to be conscious of itself, and be- 
comes able to act toward the supersensible world. 
I return to that. If the position be true, it will show 
that there is a kind of spirit-activity that is inde- 
pendent in its on-going, though dependent for its 
start. The organism initiates one form of activity, 
sensation ; this gives rise to another form — that of re- 
flection. By the first, the spirit becomes conscious; 
by the second, it exercises its own faculties. The first 
form of activity is generated in it as a passive or re- 
ceptive subject — is from without; the second, it orig- 
inates from within as an active, free, spontaneous 
subject : and if I could dislodge the soul, it is very 
possible that all kinds of activity could go on with- 
out the body. But since I cannot dislodge it, it is 
impossible for me to prove directly that the soul 
can go on without the body. How can I prove that 



70 BEYOXD THE GRAVE. 

a soul can do any thing out of the body when I 
only know it in the body? I have shown that there 
is no counter-proof. I have shown, also, that there 
is reasonable ground for the belief that its activity 
may be continued, and possibly improved, when 
dislodged. This is as far as the argument from 
reason can go. But revelation, and on it we rely 
for positive proof, when proved to be such, is a good 
witness, and faith in its testimony becomes reason- 
able, and non-faith irrational. Its testimony on the 
point is clear. But that which we know now on the 
point by reason, as we have shown, is that the soul 
while in the body is able to carry on a kind of activ- 
ity which the body does not directly mediate. All 
self-consciousness, all reflection, all meditation, all 
worship, all conception of right and wrong, of truth 
and beauty, of the spiritual Avorld, is without the me- 
diation of the body, directly. I infer that if I were 
delivered from the body, and placed in that body 
not made with hands eternal in the heavens — called 
by revelation a spiritual body — I should be gainer 
in respect of these things. The facts all seem to 
show that, and beyond all these I have no power to 
go. I stand simply upon the position that I have 
shown a discrete existence of the soul ; that it is dis- 
tinct from the body ; that at present it is shrined in 
the body; that at present a large part of its activity 
is connected with the body as a sensorium ; that at 
present a part of its activity, and the best part, is 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 7 1 

distinct and different from that which is mediated 
directly by the sensorium. 

I had reached the point in the former lecture as 
to how death affects the person. I had conceded 
that it destroys the organism, the external man ; 
that, so far as seems to sense, it is a total destruc- 
tion of the person, since the body is the only part 
of the person that appears to sense, and it appears 
to be totally destroyed. I raised the question wheth- 
er there is certainty that the higher personality — the 
spirit which I had found to be distinct from the body 
— was overthrown with the body. I had answered, 
that of that no man could give information. No 
man can prove that it is. He has no more proof 
that it is than we have that it is not. It is an open 
question. Sense gives us no light upon it. I wish 
to dwell for a moment longer on this last point. 

I stand by the death-bed of a beloved friend — a 
friend I have known as dwelling in the body, now 
prostrate with disease. I hold communion with 
him, with the consciousness that the communion is 
not with the form that lies upon the bed, but with 
a spirit that is in that form. While I am commun- 
ing, suddenly the machine stands still ; the pulse 
ceases to beat ; a quiver, and all is stilled. The eye 
ceases to express the personality that I was com- 
muning with. I am conscious that my friend has 
gone. He has vanished away. Whether has he 
gone ? What has become of him ? There is the 



72 BEYOXD THE GRAVE. 

house, still beautiful, not yet in ruins; but the in- 
habitant has disappeared from my reach. I did not 
see him go. I was alert — I was under the highest 
strain of attention — my affections were eager; I 
closely watched every motion, but I did not see the 
disappearance. Whether it is extinction, subsi- 
dence of being, escape, flight, I cannot tell, and no- 
body else can tell, for no human eye ever yet saw 
what became of the spirit. Now how am I to find 
out — since the vanishing was one that I could not 
observe, since there are no facts that give me any in- 
formation — how can I find out what has become of 
my friend ? whether there is annihilation, an over- 
throw of existence, or whether it is a mere change 
that has placed him beyond my reach? I stated 
that there are two ways only by which you can get 
any light upon that subject ; one is to consider 
facts, facts of reason, not facts of sense, which may 
help to an inference, or, a communication from 
some person who is more perfectly informed in the 
premises than we can be by observation. The per- 
son himself, for instance, if he should in some form 
re-appear, so that I could know it was he, that would 
convince me that the better part of him was not 
overthrown in the catastrophe of death. Or if some 
other being, of an invisible realm, should come to 
me and testify that he was once upon earth, and 
such a being as I am, and that he had survived 
death, and that of his knowledge the soul of man 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 7$ 

does survive death — if he could give to me evidence 
that he is a true witness — that he is what he pre- 
tends to be, an inhabitant of the invisible world — 
that he is to be believed — then I should have some 
adequate ground of a judgment in the premises. 
If a messenger should come from God, and he should 
communicate the truth to me, and should furnish 
me the evidence that he is a messenger from God 
— just in proportion to the strength of that evidence 
I should be constrained to believe. It is precisely 
here where the biblical proof comes in, which I shall 
notice after awhile. I know that there are ghost- 
seers and table-rappers, and that various supposed 
communications are made to men. But I, for my- 
self, have never seen a ghost, and have never been 
in communication with such a spiritual manifesta- 
tion as to convince me that it was a spirit from the 
other world that made it. Therefore, I have no 
proof; if any of you have that kind of evidence, 
that is clear and conclusive to your reason, why, 
that settles the question for you. I am discussing 
it for that great body of humanity that has not been 
so favored. 

In the very nature of the subject, except in one 
of the two ways I have named, it is impossible that 
future immortal existence should be a matter of 
knowledge to the human mind. To lift it from the 
realm of faith to that of knowledge the mind itself 

must be endowed with a new faculty — the faculty of 
10 



74 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

prevision. Things of the future can only be known 
as they are seen by a mind that sees the future. We 
have no such power. Our only sources of informa- 
tion are induction and testimony, and it is for this 
reason that our conviction can never rise above 
faith. The grounds of faith may be more or less 
assuring, but it must still be simply faith. The 
grounds must be one or both of two kinds, as al- 
ready stated; first, induction from facts; second, 
testimony by a competent witness. The proofs are 
chiefly the following : — 

First, I exist — I am. This I know. It is not a 
matter of conjecture merely, or of well-founded be- 
lief only. It is a matter of knowledge. It can nei- 
ther be disputed nor proved. To dispute it, is to 
assert it. It is more certain than any proof. I am 
a living being whose very essence is to think, to 
feel, to will. I should become nothing if these at- 
tributes were withdrawn. Now my first proof that 
I am to continue to live is, that I now am a living 
essence. Well, you are ready to say, that is a large 
inference, and not at all warranted by the premises. 
Let us see. The principle underlying the argument 
is this — whatever exists contains the probability that 
it will continue to exist forever. Is that true ? At 
first approach it seems utterly baseless — preposter- 
ous ; in violent contradiction of well-known facts. 
Closer scrutiny leads to a milder denial. The closest 
study will show that it is probably true. 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 75 

There are only two kinds of being. God, who is 
eternal, self-existent ; and the being that he has set 
up, created, and which exists by his will. 

The argument is this. Since God is the only source 
of being, and since whatever exists exists solely be- 
cause he holds it in being, it will continue to exist 
until he destroys it, or withdraws the being which 
he imparted. Non-existence of a created thing can 
only be reached through his agency. No created 
being has any more power to abrogate its existence 
than it had to cause it ; and no created being has 
power to abolish any other. created being. There is 
no more possibility for a finite and dependent exist- 
ence to vacate its own being, or any other being, 
than there is to establish it. This, then, follows — 
that no reason can be shown why a thing existing 
should be suffered ever to reach non-existence, un- 
less some instance of annihilation can be alleged. 
But there is no such instance. It is conceded that 
neither scientific discovery nor experience has been 
able to adduce a single case. No agent or power 
has been ascertained which is capable of expunging 
an atom of any description from the universe ; and 
all research has failed to show that the Almighty 
has ever withdrawn the gift of being from any thing 
he has created. All evidence points in one direc- 
tion, namely, that annihilation is no part of God's 
plan. But if I have no power to end my own exist- 
ence, and if no creature has power to eradicate my 



76 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

being, and if all the evidence shows that God never 
withdraws the gift of existence from the meanest 
and most insignificant thing, then there is no rea- 
son to suppose that, having commenced to exist, I 
shall ever cease to be. 

Is it said the argument proves too much, and, 
therefore, proves nothing ? Let us see. That where- 
in it is said to prove too much is this, that it proves 
that all animals are immortal, even the meanest in- 
sects. Some have seemed to hold this doctrine. 
We do not. There is not a particle of ground for 
the imagination that any animal, not even the sim- 
ply animal part of man, is destined to immortality. 
But is not this in contradiction of what has just 
been said ? Not as we understand it. The thing 
posited is this : Essences or substances of being 
are permanent, and, so far as we can discern, are 
destined to abide^forever. Forms and compositions 
of things change and pass away, but their essences 
remain. The change of form is not the obliteration 
of the substance. An animal is but a form of mat- 
ter peculiarly endowed — a living form. The life 
which animates it is but a mode of creative activ- 
ity ; its apparent intelligence is purely automatic, 
and not personal ; a form of impulse from without. 
There is contained in the animal no subject of which 
these impulses and attributes can be predicated. 
When the animal dies, there is no evidence that any 
particle of being has been obliterated. The form 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 77 

has disappeared, but the substance which composed 
it has taken on another form, or entered into some 
new complex. The life-force and its cluster of au- 
tomatic activities, instinctive impulses, has been 
withdrawn ; but the being which inspired or posited 
them, and in whom alone they had ground, is God, 
who abides forever. Thus it does not appear that 
in the varying forms which come upon the scene 
and vanish away, there is any more obliteration of 
being than there is in the cursory and vanishing 
combinations of the kaleidoscope ; nor any more 
loss of essence than there is when a steam-engine is 
taken to pieces. The power which moved it is not 
annihilated, nor are its elements. Simply, a change 
has occurred in the relation of the parts. But is it 
said, Would not these same facts apply to man, and 
prove that his case differs nothing from that of the 
animal? If death changes his form as it does that 
of the animal, and he disappears as really as the 
animal, wherein is the difference? How is it that 
we must conceive that he still exists and the ani- 
mal does not ? We have admitted that to mere 
sense the cases seem precisely alike. But are they? 
They are to a certain extent similar, and to the 
same extent the result of death is similar. But we 
have shown that man is a spirit. This the animal 
is not. So far forth as man is a form he vanishes 
and disappears, not to return ; so far forth as his 
was an automatic life, the force which played in it 



78 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

and constituted it is withdrawn, but so far forth 
as he is a spirit, the destruction of the form and the 
withdrawment of the automatic life do not neces- 
sarily affect the integrity of that, and nothing short 
of annihilation can ; and that it is ever resorted to, 
there is no proof. In every other case decomposi- 
tion is all that is manifest. We see no reason to 
suppose any thing more in this case. But decom- 
position does not impair essence ; and decomposi- 
tion is only possible where there is a complex. 
The spirit is not a complex, but a simple. No 
agent can take its parts asunder, for it has no parts; 
nothing can change its form, for it is formless as 
thought, or feeling, or volition, though it may 
always dwell in a form. No instrument is keen 
enough of edge to divide it, no lens has power 
enough to reveal it. The only effect death can have 
on it is to take down its house, and spoil the in- 
strument by which now it shows that it is, and 
where it is. Whether it goes into another house, 
and acquires a better instrument, is the question we 
are considering. What we claim is, that so far as 
any facts go, existence is guarantee of permanence, 
and so the spirit, we may believe, survives death — 
is immortal.* 

Before I notice the next argument, I want to in- 
terject an illustration here. You see I am making 
a great deal — every thing — of the fact that I am not 

* For further on this point turn to note A in the Appendix. 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 79 

my body. That is every thing to me, and 1 want 
to return to that for a moment. I will take an 
illustration. Illustrations do not prove much, but 
they serve to help us sometimes. It shall be taken 
from the art or science of telegraphy. This is one 
of the most beautiful and wonderful arts ever dis- 
covered. The instrument of this art shall serve to 
illustrate our subject. The point we have made 
much of is, that the universe is dual, comprising 
two discrete and discriminate realms, one material, 
the other spiritual ; one visible and palpable, the 
other incognizable by sense. Man is sometimes 
said to be the isthmus between the two. One side 
of him belongs to the supersensible realm, the other 
side of him belongs to the sensible. Looking out 
of one window you look up to God and the great 
spiritual family, and looking out at the other win- 
dow you look down to the dust. He combines the 
two worlds. The telegraph furnishes a beautiful 
illustration of the thought. The arrangement, you 
all know, for telegraphing is, first, there is a gen- 
erator of electricity — a galvanic battery — an ar- 
rangement for the accumulation of electric force. 
Now electricity is matter, but it is the most attenu- 
ate and fine form of matter. It is as far as you can 
go toward the spiritual world in matter, if, indeed, 
there is any approach. It is the boundary line be- 
tween the two hemispheres. Starting from that al- 
most spiritual fluid you pass backward until you 



8o 



BE YOND THE GRA VE. 



come to denser forms of matter— the wire and the 
battery. Let us construct a telegraphic line from 
Fair Point westward across the continent, the Pa- 
cific Ocean, the continents of Asia and Europe, the 
Atlantic Ocean, and from our coast down to Fair 
Point again. Here we have a bridge that goes 
around the world. Here we have an invisible 
courser that is very much like a spirit, imprisoned 
in this jar. We have a wire by which we can con- 
nect this bridge around the world with this impris- 
oned or stabled courser. Sitting by is a man to 
work the instrument. First, an outer man, as gross 
as the galvanic battery or wire, or, midway between 
them, a material structure. Second, a man, a real 
man, that thinks. This real man is brought, by 
signs, written or spoken, into communion with an- 
other real man who stands near by in a form which 
is seen, but himself is not seen. He makes known 
a thought of his which he wishes to convey to an- 
other man who sits in an adjoining room. The 
man presiding over the instrument receives it, un- 
derstands it, proving that the two are similar in 
essence and faculty, though both are invisible. He 
saddles the thought on this invisible courser, starts 
it on the bridge, and it flies around the world in a 
few moments of time, and drops itself into the other 
man, and is as real in him as it was in the author. 
The same thing that this invisible man had in him, 
in his invisible personality, is carried by that invisi- 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 8 1 

ble courser on the bridge of metal around the globe, 
and deposited in the other mind at the other end 
of the pole of the connection. What is it that was 
conveyed ? Did it ever have any material quality ? 
If not, has that any material quality which gave and 
which received it ? Now, I hold that in that fact 
the thinker and the thought are as real as the wire 
and electricity, and that thus we connect the two 
worlds together, knowing no more of the existence 
of the one than of the other. I know the existence 
of that thinker and that thought, and of that of the 
recipient thinker and thought, just as well and dis- 
tinctly as I know the existence of the wire that car- 
ries the message. I know the one by sense-observa- 
tion, I know the other by the law of thought re- 
vealed in my own consciousness, and no man can 
disenchant me of the evidence of the distinct exist- 
ence of the persons any more than he can of the 
other facts. 

Now, my first argument is, that this personality 
will remain in the event of death, unless he is anni- 
hilated, and that of that there is no evidence at all. 
I challenge it from the history of all observation ; I 
challenge all scientists; I challenge all vulgar minds; 
I challenge the race to bring me the proof that a 
single atom of matter that God has created, or a 

o 

single atom of spirit from the beginning of crea- 
tion until now, has ever perished. 

The second argument I derive from the nature oi 
11 



82 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

the human soul ; that is, from its faculties. Now 
what is a human soul? What is the law of a hu- 
man soul? I have said it is a spiritual substance, 
whose faculty it is to think, to feel, and to will. 
It is a peculiarity of this soul that it is a growing 
something ; that it begins in almost nothing, and 
grows and unfolds its power according to a law ; 
and the point I want to call your attention to is, that 
there is no assigned limit to that unfolding power. 
Perhaps on this ground there is a very young babe. 
Let us look at that babe for an illustration. When 
it is first placed upon the mother's breast it is to 
her mind a most beautiful thing, but to nobody else's 
mind, for a young babe is never beautiful — it be- 
comes so afterward. A mother's enthusiasm covers 
it with a halo, and to her heart and eye it is more 
beautiful than an angel when it is laid upon her 
bosom. But if you should go there after two or 
three days and look down into the face of the child 
you would find simply a lump of flesh ; no indica- 
tions of any thing else ; for a baby's eye has no more 
intelligence in it than a doll's eye — not a particle. 
There it lies, unintelligent and incapable of expres- 
sion, breathing and nursing at the mother's breast, 
as purely a little animal as ever there was in the 
forests of the world. But go forward fifteen days 
from the time it was put on the mother's breast — 
it is yet small, and its life imperfectly developed, 
but do you not see somebody looking out of the 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 83 

window at you ? Do you not see that something 
has come there with an interrogation point?* Do 
you not see that there is something beginning to 
feel out with a kind of wonder into the universe ? 
This is a baby's soul. It does not know any thing, 
does not love any thing; but it begins to try and 
know, and to put forth the first fibers or tendrils of 
feeling. Stay there a few months. See now, as it 
looks into the mother's face, a smile like an angel's 
comes over its countenance ; it lifts up its little velvet 
fingers and touches the mother's face with a stroke 
that thrills with strange affection. It is a baby's 
soul. It has just begun to do what a baby's soul can 
do — to unfold itself. Now you have been accus- 
tomed to trace the growth of the body as the measure 
of the tailor and of the shoemaker increases, and so 
you call your baby half-grown, full-grown. When 
it gets to be six feet high, and broad and strong, it 
is a full-grown man, you say. I call your attention 
to another growth. The growth that you have been 
observing is the growth of an animal, of a machine, 
a growth by digesting food and exercise ; but have 
you observed another growth of that invisible baby 
that was put in your arms — a growth of knowledge ? 
It began to inquire about home, about the people, 
and about the things of the town, and became ac- 

* We do not mean by this that the spirit is not present until the 
babe is several days old, but that it does not manifest itself by any 
sign. 



84 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

quainted with the family, and with the neighbor- 
hood, and with the neighboring gossip, and then its 
powers were active and ready for use, and you 
thought it was time to start it to school ; and it 
has learned to read, and studied the simple con- 
struction of language, and now it is pondering a 
problem in arithmetic. Its face is corrugated, it is 
intent on finding out something; and now it has 
traveled through arithmetic, and up through mathe- 
matics, until it could read all the deep things of 
mathematics. It has plowed through science. It 
has investigated the globe. It has become ac- 
quainted with its geography, and with its geology, 
and with its natural history, and with its human 
history, and it has ascended into the stars and has 
mastered astronomy, and has become a great, wide, 
and mighty thinker, full of truth, full of power, full 
of new faculty. It is a soul that has been growing 
up, and unfolding, and expanding in grander form 
than the body itself. Well, the body reaches its 
stature — sometimes it is an abnormal body, gets 
very large, but there is an ordinary and fixed stand- 
ard — the body reaches its stature, and then it be- 
gins to go back : but this other part does not reach 
its stature ; and herein it differs from every thing 
else that is found on the face of the globe. The 
great California trees, three thousand years old, will 
reach their stature. All animals will come to their 
growth ; all living things will culminate and decay. 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEIXG. 85 

Not so with the soul. When it learns the alphabet 
it is just ready to begin to learn to read; when it 
learns to read it is just getting ready to think of 
the meaning of words ; when it learns the exist- 
ence of things it is just ready to penetrate and in- 
vestigate them, and find out deeper things about 
them. And if it should live on a thousand years it 
would still be ascending, step by step, upon this 
great pyramid of being ; and if it should live ten 
million years, this power of expansion, of growth, 
of enlargement, which ever increases as the spirit 
enlarges, will lead it on. When I behold it ascend- 
ing that magnificent highway stretching from the 
cradle to eternity; from earth to the throne of God ; 
widening in its faculties, increasing in its power of 
love, and thought, and perception of truth, for ever 
and ever, I am constrained to ask for what were 
such powers bestowed, if not to reach their normal 
development, but to do that must require immortal- 
ity of being. 

God does nothing in vain. When he gives a 
power it is for a purpose, it is that it may reach 
an end. Now what I argue is this: Since he has 
put in my soul a germ that can grow to eternity, he 
means that it shall grow to eternity. I hold that 
the argument is on my side ; that the philosophy of 
the mind shows that it was made, not for a day, but 
for eternity. The improvidence of God in stopping 
it would be like the improvidence of an artist who 



86 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

should go into the studio and commence making a 
beautiful specimen of art, clothing it with utmost 
richness, and utmost perfection of beauty, and then 
just when he got it fairly set up — sufficiently ad- 
vanced to show what it was to be — should burn it 
up, and should repeat that day after day. Suppose 
a man should work hard to make a fortune, and, as 
soon as he made it, should put it into the fire and 
burn it to ashes, would you not say he was insane? 
Suppose you found any maker of any thing, who, 
just when his creations began to be worthy, should 
dash them to pieces, what would you think of his 
wisdom ? If it were a work that had infinite possi- 
bilities of good in it, and he should pulverize it just 
when realization of the infinite possible good was 
reached, what would you think then ? If, still further, 
he had awakened great hope and expectation con- 
cerning the possible good, and then should crush the 
whole in a moment from mere caprice, what would you 
think then? Would not all intelligence pronounce 
it a cruel — nay, worse — an insane whim ? The ar- 
gument from the nature of the soul is precisely this. 
The attributes of the soul thus manifested do not 
reach their complete measure of development in this 
life, nor in any measurable time, so that it does never 
come to its full stature, and could not within any 
limited period ; the inference is, that it will continue 
to exist hereafter and forever. Capacity implies an 
end equal to its measure. The principle involved 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 87 

is, God does nothing needless. When he bestow? 
a power it is that it may be improved. This is 
proved to be a fact throughout the entire circle of 
nature in every case, man excepted. No seed of any 
vegetable contains a latent force which may not find 
full expression in the condition of its earthy exist- 
ence. Its bloom, and fruit, and stature may reach 
completeness. There remains in it no potentiality 
undeveloped. The same is true of every animal. 
Its earthly life furnishes it the full opportunity for 
perfect expression. Were it to live to eternity it 
could become no more than it is in the hours or 
years, as the case may be, of its life. The evolution 
is perfect. Nature furnishes no instance of a power 
which is useless or thwarted. Blasted germs and 
premature decays are no contradiction of this prin- 
ciple. The earth furnishes to them the conditions 
for perfect expression. There was the opportunity 
for their attaining their end. That they were cut 
short does not imply the creation of capacity in 
vain, or to no end, since in many cases they reach 
the end, and the object of their creation is an- 
swered. Nor is their failure to come to complete 
development in any sense a calamity. There is no 
real waste in the case. Man furnishes the solitary 
exception to this law. He is the only argosy that, 
freighted with vastest wealth, is sent out upon the 
ocean of existence at most lavish expenditure, that 
it may be stranded upon the nearest reef, and its 



88 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

splendid jewelry be sunk in the infinite abyss. Why 
such expensive folly? To what end such waste? 
Why create such wealth of possibility and dash it to 
atoms in the instant of its creation ? It is incon- 
ceivable that the Infinite should be guilty of such 
unthrift. The madness of such a deed is even 
greater than we have supposed. He does not even 
finish the work, but destroys it in the process of 
making — spoils the harvest in the bloom. He cre- 
ates powers which expand as they age, which gain 
wealth as they are used, every exercise of which 
becomes a history, every forth-putting an eternal 
psalm ; — powers that retain all they ever gain, and 
advance toward the Infinite, a great soul of powers ; 
which at some time would pass angelic stature in 
wealth of wisdom and knowledge, and would be- 
come a universe of grandeur and happiness in itself; 
a soul which, with all its glory of being and felicity, 
would pour forth all its wealth in adoring worship 
of its author; a soul whose bliss would almost rival 
his own ! Is it possible to imagine that the Infinite 
did create such a being, and open before himself and 
before it such a prospect, and nourish it, with the 
idea only that he might dash the beautiful vase and 
scatter all its incense in one mad moment? 

Add to this view of the soul's faculties facts 
found in its essential nature pointing to immor- 
tality — its dissatisfaction with every thing earthly, 
and its restlessness in view of its relations with this 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 89 

world. I make the assertion without qualification, 
that not one of you has ever been completely satis- 
fied with what you have done or with what you are. 
All ages, and conditions, and circumstances in life 
are represented in this congregation, but I know that 
not one of you is completely satisfied and happy in 
the things of this world. Your souls are fluttering 
within you like caged birds. You are restless seek- 
ers after rest. 

If we look out into the material world, we are con- 
scious of a mighty contrast between man and other 
creatures. The little bird sings through the day, 
and is completely happy. At night it tucks its head 
under its wing, and is cradled by the wind on some 
swaying bough, in total oblivion to fear or remorse. 
The flocks and herds upon a thousand hills, the 
myriad forms of insect life, the finny tribes of the 
sea, all can find the end of their being, and rest in 
fullness of desire and satisfaction. But man, the 
masterpiece, the crown of creation — man alone — is 
restless and unsatisfied. He travels round the world, 
dips into every pleasure, seeks out all knowledge, 
wears every badge of honor, wields every scepter of 
power, and then lies down in utter disgust and de- 
spair, saying, " Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and 
vexation of spirit." And thus it is with some of us. 
We are not as happy as the animals around us — we 
are full of business — we choose pleasure — we study, 

travel, mingle with men, and yet our nature is not 
12 



9° BE YOND THE GRA VE. 

satisfied. There are vague, ever-craving wants with- 
in. Nothing suits the soul. All these things perish 
or grow stale with the using. They accomplish 
nothing. They bring nothing to us that we can 
hold. There is a lack in every thing that we touch 
or taste. A wanting and an ever-wanting of what 
is never, never, NEVER on earth to be found. " I 
envy that dog his happy lot," said a man who ruled 
the fashions of England. " I wish I had never mar- 
ried, or that I had died childless," said the great 
Augustus from the throne of the world. And he 
who had exactly computed all the advantages, and 
pleasures, and riches, and splendor of the world, 
found this to be the sum total : " Vanity of vani- 
ties, all is vanity." 

What is the moral significance of this dissatisfac- 
tion of the soul with the things of time and sense ? 
What means this restlessness of the human spirit? 
Tell me why the caged bird flutters against its 
prison bars, and I will tell you why the soul sick- 
ens of earthliness. That bird has wings, and wings 
were made to cleave the air, and soar in freedom to 
the sun. That soul is immortal— it cannot be fed 
with husks. The inspiration of the Almighty has 
given it understanding, and it struggles to get free 
from the emptiness of material things, and to lay 
hold upon its true food, and rest, and life. And 
these instinctive strugglings are proofs of immor- 
tality to those who think deeply. 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 9 1 

When we get down into the depths of the soul 
we find this conviction : Nothing is complete or 
completed here. These are but the beginnings of 
things that I see about me. All these powers, and 
graces, and virtues that I am gathering are but the 
preparatory conditions of a higher training and a 
higher life. These cravings, these aspirations, these 
deathless longings, are hints, prophecies, demonstra- 
tions of a fullness yet to be enjoyed and possessed 
by me. Eyes prove the possibilities of vision ; feet 
prove that God meant that man should walk ; the 
vocal organs show that man was made to speak and 
sing. So the soul's sense of incompleteness is the 
prophecy of a fullness somewhere within its reach. 
If we thus long for life and love eternal, it is likely 
there are the life and love to satisfy those claims. 
We could have no joy in God if we knew that he 
had created a human want with no adequate sup- 
ply. Life would be a cruel riddle to us without im- 
mortality to complete it. The high aspirations of 
the soul would be blasting mockeries if immortality 
was not to be their satisfaction. 

We feel, in our best hours, that we are only chil- 
dren playing with toys, and that maturity and man- 
hood must come in due time. I am nothing, but I 
feel that I have not begun to say the ten thousandth 
part of what is in my mind and heart to say. What 
I have to say may be of little consequence to others, 
but it is of great consequence to myself. I want to 



9 2 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

say it to relieve my own feelings, and to articulate 
the name, and the glory, and the goodness of God 
before his universe. Threescore years and ten will 
be altogether too short for me to tell my story to 
the world. I shall need the immortal years to com- 
plete this work, and so will you. And so immor- 
tality proves itself to me in a very easy and natural 
way. I feel that I was made to complete things. To 
accomplish only a mass of beginnings and attempts 
would be to make a total failure of life. Perfection 
is the heritage with which my Creator has endowed 
me, and since this short life does not give complete- 
ness, I must have immortal life in which to find it. 
When the springtime comes the birds of the North 
feel in their very bones an impulse to fly northward, 
and, under the inspiration of an instinct that they 
cannot resist, they travel hundreds of miles to find 
their northern haunts. Short of completeness, the 
human spirit, in its normal temper, feels mysterious 
influences drawing it toward a natural destiny of 
perfection, in which it can find all that is lacking 
here. O what a riddle life would be if it ended in 
death ! What a mockery all its secret aspirations 
and holy hopes ! How empty all the maxims of 
love, charity, and faith ! How tantalizing all the 
words and promises of God ! How completely un- 
settled all our ideas of his holiness, justice, and 
love ! What a stupendous failure, what a pitiful 
farce earth and humanity would be ! This yearn- 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 93 

ing after perfection and completeness is the soul's 
prophecy of its own immortality. It is the soul flut- 
tering its wings out into native air. 

3. It longs for and has the prophecy in itself of im- 
mortality, both in its desires and fears : it is, there- 
fore, probably true. It is not pretended that the 
mere existence of hope or fear is to be regarded as 
evidences of the truth or reality of what is hoped or 
feared. Both these states we know may be evoked 
by the imagination. But the point we make is this : 
when these states spring spontaneously in every 
human breast ; when they are offsprings of nature, 
and not of education ; when they hold permanent 
sway over all men ; when they commence in early 
childhood and continue to old age ; when they dom- 
inate over all classes, and ages, and ranks, and con- 
ditions of men, and when they cannot be eradicated 
in a single case, they must be supposed to have a 
real cause ; springing eternal in the human breast, 
and holding ineradicable sway, they are shown to be 
of nature itself, and argue either that he who made 
us constitutes us so that we should be the inevitable 
victims of delusion, the pitiable prey of false hopes, 
and the tortured victims of unreal terrors, or, they 
point to reality. Which is the more reasonable con- 
clusion ? Is nature an organized lie ? Has our Cre- 
ator designed to delude us? Is the Almighty a 
fraud, snaring helpless creatures that he may amuse 
himself with their causeless hopes and terrors? The 



94 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

conclusion is inevitable, either this, or man will live 
after death. 

This argument is strengthened when we find 
not only that these feelings are of nature, coming 
unbidden to us, but that they are made to serve 
a practical purpose, showing that they are intro- 
duced into the plan of the Creator to serve an end. 
Conscience is an officer who, with utmost vigi- 
lance, warns of danger to estop from crime. When 
sin is purposed he menacingly points to future 
retribution ; when it is committed he relentlessly 
scourges with forebodings. What does it mean ? 
Are we to suppose that the Almighty is reduced to 
the miserable shifts of tricks and deceptive arts for 
the maintenance of his authority ? Or may we rather 
conclude that the sentinel is set to warn because 
there is danger? Which is the more creditable to 
the Maker, the supposition that the lure is real, or 
a cheat ; that the beacon is a scarecrow or a faithful 
warning? Did treachery and fraud ever so resemble 
truth ? The snare is set for prey, treachery aims at 
gain or revenge. What advantage can the Infinite 
propose to himself in so entrapping his dependent 
and confiding children? Would it not be more to 
his honor that he should make real what seems so 
manifestly wise and appropriate ? The inference 
that the objects of instruction, human hope and 
dread, are real, we think is reasonable, and we, there- 
fore, accept and believe the doctrine of the perma- 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 95 

nent existence of the soul, and its future suffering 
or joy, contingent upon its virtuous or vicious deeds 
here. The forecasting is true prophecy. I quote 
the words of one who has entered the unseen, and 
who has ere this tested the theory — Bidwell : — 

" Paul states a universal truth when he describes 
a natural man as ' being all his lifetime subject to 
bondage through fear of death.' This thought of 
death is always with man. Every-once-in-awhile 
it will rise up in our path and stare us in the face, 
and it makes cowards of the strongest of us. And 
this dread of death is not simply a negative argu- 
ment. Man every-where possesses an innate love 
of life. We all know what this means. There are 
powerful longings in our souls to live on, active, 
thinking, hoping, working, conquering as we do 
now, or more successfully. This love of life is com- 
mon to all ranks, classes, and conditions of men. 
And this love of life is felt by us often, when, to all 
appearances, life is shorn of every thing pleasant and 
desirable. And this fear of death is often felt with- 
out any clear sense of future retributions. Men 
cling to life because they love to live, and they 
shrink from death, not on account of the pangs of 
dying, or of the results that follow, but because 
they dread the thought of going out of existence — 
of being dead ! What is the significance of this love 
of life and fear of death ? I understand it to be a 
natural expression of that conviction of personal im- 



96 BE YOND THE GRA VE. 

mortality which the inspiration of the Almighty has 
breathed into the human spirit. It is that love of 
self-poised, self-possessed existence which distin- 
guishes man from the brute, and lifts him above it. 
Here, then, is a proof of our immortality ; drawn, 
not from science, or books, or philosophy, but from 
the soul itself. It is a normal experience in the 
development of our nature, and it must be accept- 
ed as an intimation of the divine thought concern- 
ing us. 

" To this may be added the soul's ceaseless yearn- 
ing after the infinite and the eternal. If the soul 
were mortal and material it would find full satisfac- 
tion in the things of this world. It would be as 
contented as the beasts of the field or the fowls of 
the air. An animal is material, therefore matter 
will answer all the demands of its nature and 
satisfy its utmost desires — satisfied sensualities are 
its good. All beings find the center of their hap- 
piness in the fullness of the elements of their own 
nature. 

" If man is material lie will find perfect satisfac- 
tion in the things of sense. But what are the facts 
in the case ? This world never has, and never can, 
satisfy the desires of a single soul. Give it all 
the elements of earth, air, sea, and heaven, molded 
into any possible form, and it will grasp the whole, 
and pant for higher wealth. Why is this? The 
soul is not matter or connatural with matter. It is 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 97 

spirit ; it came from God. His inspiration gave it 
understanding, therefore it can be satisfied alone 
in God. * In him we live, and move, and have 
our being.' His communion and love must be our 
only heaven. 'As the hart panteth after the water 
brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My 
soul thirsteth for God : when shall I come and ap- 
pear before God ? ' The ability to think of God, to 
long for his communion, is a proof of immortality, 
for nothing but the immortal is equal to such a 
thought and longing." Who will may doubt, we 
cannot. 

4. The divine character requires man's existence 
in the future in order to its own vindication. This, 
we think, is so on two grounds, to wit, the grounds 
both of goodness and justice. If immortality is a 
possible fact, and if it might result in the greatly 
increased happiness of the universe, we have every 
reason to suppose it would be bestowed. And it is 
doubtful if, on the whole, the creation of such a be- 
ing as man expresses goodness, if the grave bounds 
his possible existence. There is too much of misery 
and hardship crowded into life on earth to make it 
a boon, if it does not make way to something better. 
There can be no doubt that a being who has power and 
wisdom to originate such a creature as man, has the 
requisite power and ivisdom to perpetuate and greatly 
aggrandize his existence. Not to do it, is to becloud 

a?id call in question J lis be?ievolence, for what he has 
13 



9§ BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

already done. It may savor of harshness and irrev- 
erence, but we are constrained to feel that he might 
better have done nothing. Who can for a moment 
believe (as we with our imperfectness discern a pos- 
sible outcome so much more creditable) that he 
would stop at the very beginning of his work. The 
only possible excuse for this world is, that it is the 
precursor of a culmination whose glory will make 
amends for its present miseries. I am not unmind- 
ful that the world is beautiful, and that to multi- 
tudes of men this life has much real happiness, and 
that all men prefer rather to remain in it, than to 
depart from it. I do not dispute its possible good, 
its exquisite and exalted pursuits for some ; but, on 
the theory that it is a finality, its pleasures are too 
costly and rare, and its miseries too abounding and 
great. For the one or the few that ride upon the 
high places, too many millions walk with bleeding 
feet, and, what is infinitely worse, with bleeding 
hearts, along all the highways of the world. If there 
are no moral ends to be served by these scenes of 
suffering — if these capabilities of agony, and terrible 
facts of agony, are not incidental to some glorious 
outcome such as an immortal life will make possible 
■ — they can be nothing other than the bootless inclu- 
sions of an unprincipled and cruel experiment of 
creative power. The grandest expression of God- 
head, power, and goodness the Infinite has given is 
the creation of man, with his dower of heart and in- 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 99 

tellect, if they may come after discipline and growth 
to the destiny which seems possible to them ; but, 
if the discipline is to end in extinction, creation fur- 
nishes no sadder spectacle of meaningless existence, 
and no more melancholy instance of endowment for 
useless pain. It was a terrible venture to make a 
human heart, with its keen susceptibilities. It will 
be justified only when it appears that it was created 
for a possible bliss, which to be real will lay eternity 
under tribute. 

But if benevolence requires a future life for man 
in order to its vindication, much more does justice. 
There is an essential and eternal distinction be- 
tween right and wrong. The failure to recognize 
it is the highest reproach that can be cast upon a 
moral being. No debasement is so great. Next 
to setting wrong before right, which is the quintes- 
sence of evil, is the making no distinction between 
them — the failure to discriminate in favor of good- 
ness. This shame and dishonor, in its most atro- 
cious form and disgrace, falls upon the administra- 
tor of the universe, if the present scene terminates 
his dealings with men. Earthly providence is a 
travesty of justice on any other theory than that it 
is a preliminary stage, which is to be followed by 
rectifications. Either there must be a future, or 
consummate injustice sits upon the throne of the 
universe. This is the verdict of humanity in all the 
ages. Sin is not punished, virtue is not rewarded, 



IOO BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

on earth ; on the contrary, the former is more often 
in honor, and the latter in dishonor. Justice may, 
for purposes of mercy or brighter ultimate manifes- 
tation, withhold for a time reward or deserved pun- 
ishment ; it may, for sufficient ulterior ends, allow 
ages to pass without self-vindicatory processes ; it 
may linger long and show infinite patience ; " the 
mills of God grind slow ;" he that holds eternity in 
his grasp has no need to hurry, but he cannot re- 
main silent forever. 

Ultimately he must come forth from " the clouds 
and darkness" which encircle his throne, and exhibit 
the precious jewelry of his eternal justice to adoring 
holiness and trembling guilt. Men and angels must 
come to see that, in their dark times, when inno- 
cence crouched before power, and goodness bled and 
died in the street, and when guilt pampered itself 
on the spoils of robbery and oppression and strode 
before men and over their prostrate forms with 
u eyes standing out with fatness" and a countenance 
of bloated pride, corrupting innocence, debauching 
helplessness, and filling the great wide earth with 
woe, and He that sat in the heavens said not a 
word, nor put forth a finger to stop it, and, so far as 
appeared, cared nothing about it — they must yet see 
that even then he was no uninterested observer, no 
indifferent spectator: that even then he was arrang- 
ing the heavy caissons of avenging wrath, which in 
due time he will draw forth, and in the desolation 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 10 1 

that shall overtake the evil-doer, and the crown of 
magnificent glory that shall be set upon suffering 
goodness in the presence of the assembled uni- 
verse, it shall appear that he was always on the 
side of right, and from the beginning the utter 
and uncompromising foe of wrong. To make that 
demonstration men must stand again after death, 
and a new existence, under new conditions, with 
new assortments of work and order, must open in 
endless perspective before them. There it will ap- 
pear, as it otherwise never can, that God is both 
just and good. Let the curtain drop with Lazarus 
at the gate — a pauper, covered with sores, discard- 
ed, dying in want ; with Dives, rolling in wealth, 
faring sumptuously every day, having more than 
heart can wish, honored, praised, and loved of 
men ; the former the friend of virtue, the latter 
a patron of vice — let the curtain drop here, and 
never roll up again for the ages of eternity, and 
the universe might justly curse its Maker. But roll 
it up again ! Eternal Love will not permit this as 
the closing scene. Lo ! now angels are bearing on 
swift wings from yonder heaven — they come from 
the throne of God — love speeds them — they take 
the dead Lazarus on their arms — they mount with 
eager flight — to him heaven opens, and his rags 
are changed for robes — a crown is put upon his 
head — God receives him as his own child, and Dives 
is driven away to his own place ! Justice now grows 



102 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

bright again, and the universe rejoices in its right- 
eous Ruler! 

5. The fifth proof we name is the universal 
belief of immortality. The joint causes already 
named, together with, perhaps, a tradition descend- 
ing from the beginning, and possibly an inward 
illumination common to all minds, have produced 
a universal belief in immortality. It is not pre- 
tended that in all cases, or even in the majority, 
there have existed clearly defined views on the sub- 
ject; on the contrary, it is admitted that generally 
it has been obscurely conceived, and that even the 
most enlightened persons have found it wrapped in 
profound mystery. But despite the darkness that 
naturally encompasses it, and against the discour- 
aging facts which surround it, it has for some pre- 
vailing reason or reasons mastered the world-faith. 
Nowhere, amid whatever of debasement, mental or 
moral, has it been obliterated. The wisest and 
most stupid, the wickedest and most virtuous, of 
mankind have alike embraced it. It is one of the 
two or three majestic truths which has had inherent 
force enough to maintain its sway over all ages, 
and, though resisted and caviled at, has had power 
enough to subjugate all minds. For myself, I can 
find no other explanation of this than its truth, and 
some inherent power of the mind by which it is 
intuited. But if the fact of its universal accept- 
ance is to be accounted as evidence that it is true, 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. IO3 

as it certainly is, the evidence is strengthened 
by the further fact, that it has the greatest power 
over the purest and best minds. If it is called in 
question, it is by the intellectually degraded and 
morally vile. As men become base its hold is 
weakened. Sin, interested to escape exposure, tries 
to believe in possible concealment in the darkness 
of annihilation, but even it cannot. In proportion 
as the powers become purified and ennobled by the 
practices of virtue, and in the measure in which 
they are aggrandized by study and high culture, 
and as they rise into the serene region of pure 
thought, and are delivered from the films and mists 
of mere prejudice and fancy, this truth acquires 
more complete dominion over them. When made 
perfect they dwell in the reposeful and beautiful 
serenity of unquestioning faith. While it is true 
that, in most cases, evidence is addressed to the 
understanding or reason, it is certain that the mind 
does, in some cases, apprehend truth without being 
able to assign to itself the manner. The way is di- 
rect and inexplicable. We are forced to believe, 
without being able to assign why. May it not be a 
kind of divine instinct? It is remarkable that in no 
case, in which faith thus arises, is it ever found to 
be in error. Conclusions from observation are often 
false ; experience may be misinterpreted ; but when 
the mental nature goes universally, without being at 
the pains to require a reason, to one and the same 



104 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

conclusion, it is never convicted of error. Can if 
be supposed that these indisputable facts signify 
nothing? Is it a reasonable inference that this one 
instance is in violent disharmony with the common 
analogies of nature ? In this solitary case, do the 
hopes and fears and faiths of men indicate a fiction ? 
Is the Almighty, at this one point, in collision wit i 
himself? Is doubt reasonable, when it requires 
that we should go against the common and sponta- 
neous convictions, hopes, and fears of mankind, and 
when it indicts Jehovah himself with cruelty, in- 
justice, and a conspiracy to deceive his helpless 
children? Can a man stand alone against his race, 
and against the Almighty, and expect to make good 
his cause? The temerity of such a position is 
only surpassed by its transcendent folly. Jehovah 
has not perjured himself. The universal heart, in- 
stinct, and reason have not misjudged. Sin is not 
the champion of truth, nor virtue the herald of 
a lie. 

" There is not in the compass of nature a more 
lively emblem of the soul, imprisoned in this mortal 
body, than, homely as the comparison may appear, 
that of a bird in the egg. The little animal, though 
thus confined, is in the midst of the scenes of its 
future life. It is not distance which excludes it 
from the air, the light, and all the objects with 
which it will so soon be conversant. It is in the 
midst of them, though utterly shut out from them ; 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 105 

and when the moment for bursting its inclosure 
comes, will be ushered into a new world, and trans- 
lated into scenes unknown before, not by any change 
of place, but by passing into another state of exist- 
ence. So it is with the soul. It is now, in a cer- 
tain sense, in eternity, and surrounded with eternal 
things. Even the body to which it is attached 
stands out, on the surface of this globe, in infinite 
space. Besides, the spiritual world envelopes it on 
every side ; it is encompassed with a cloud of wit- 
nesses ; innumerable spirits encamp about it ; and 
God is as intimately present to it, as to the highest 
angel that beholds his face in heaven. Neverthe- 
less, to realize to itself the nearness and presence 
of these eternal objects, at least to know them as it 
will know them hereafter, is a thing impossible. 
Why? Not because any tract of space is interposed 
between the soul and them, but because the spirit- 
ual principle, while united to flesh, is by the laws 
of that union so incarcerated in the body as to be 
denied all means of intercourse with those scenes 
which lie around its prison walls. The hand of 
death alone can unbar the door, and let the spirit 
out into the free air and open day-light of eternity. 
There is one important particular more in which 
this analogy holds. Unless the embryo is vivi- 
fied while in the egg, it can receive no vitalizing 
principle after. If the shell is broken the young 

bird comes out dead. Thus it is also with the soul. 
14 



106 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

Unless impregnated with spiritual life before it 
leaves the body, it will come forth still-born into 
eternity, and continue forever dead in trespasses 
and sins." 

While imprisoned in the shell the bird is uncon- 
sciously outgrowing its conditions. It is develop- 
ing an organism not adapted to its narrow walls. 
It is taking on powers which must erelong break 
through its limitations. What was useful to it in 
the first stages of its life will soon become destruc- 
tive. It must have enlargement. Who will say 
that this development, which makes it unsuited to 
its present condition, and which precisely fits it for 
a broader, deeper, and better life, is not prophetic 
of that life ; that these unfolded powers, which find 
no sphere in its present condition, do not point to 
the open air and wider theater to which the demol- 
ished shell releases it ? The germ contained more 
than the prison limits of a shell would permit to 
unfold. Is it not so with the soul? Are there not 
powers here which never find full play on the earth, 
and never can? Has there not already developed 
in your soul wants which time and sense cannot 
satisfy? Do you not, in the supremest moments, 
hear voices in your soul calling you up ? Are you 
not conscious of longings for something better 
than earth can give ? Has there not come to 
you the feeling of an undefinable attraction toward 
unseen realities? Do you not sometimes see the 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. \0J 

far-off signals waving you on ? Do you not feel 
a strange uneasiness often, and stirring within 
you, as if you would fly away to a beautiful 
realm somewhere, where life could take on nobler 
forms, and, we do not doubt, those you have loved 
dwell? I know you do. Are not these prophetic 
— the stirring of a life in the germ ? I must think 
they are. 

We have found, upon grounds of reason, that man 
is a dual being — a spirit, shrined in a body ; that in 
the complex, the spirit is pre-eminent — par excellence \ 
the man ; that the body is inferior and instrumental 
— a servant pro tempore ; that, while it is a needed 
and useful adjunct for a time, it is in its nature per- 
ishable — incapable of permanence ; that the spirit, 
though now to a large extent dependent on it, if 
not for existence, for certain modes of its activity, 
yet at some future time, and under changed condi- 
tions, may consciously exist and act without it ; 
that though at death the body perishes, there is 
no proof that the spirit suffers in its integrity or 
power ; that while neither sense, consciousness, nor 
reason, furnishes any satisfactory account of what 
becomes of the spirit at death, yet it does appear 
from many facts, that probably death is not its de- 
struction but only its introduction into another 
realm ; that existence, once bestowed, from all that 
we know, is indestructible ; that powers which have 
inherent, endless progressibility indicate that they 



108 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

are immortal ; that instinctive fears and hopes, fore- 
casting a future scene of retribution, are prophetic; 
that the universal, ineradicable belief of future ex- 
istence, is of the nature of proof in its favor ; that 
the nature of God, whether we regard his wisdom, 
his love, or his justice, demands a future life for 
man : — so much has, we think, been clearly estab- 
lished. 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. IO9 



LECTURE III. 

MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 

TV T OW, turning away from these dim lights of 
-*■ ^ natural reason — not unthankful for them — 
we come to the fuller light of revelation, to see 
what it will give us. 

What we claim for the argument thus far is, that 
it furnishes grounds for rational faith in the doctrine 
of a future life. We do not pretend that it goes 
further ; but, however it may fail of being perfectly 
satisfactory, it is the best that our unaided powers 
can do. 

We turn now to our sixth proof: the testimony 
of revelation. This proof differs from all the pre- 
ceding in that it is not an induction, but a testimony ; 
it is not the voice of imperfect human reason, say- 
ing, it may be true, or probably is true, that man 
survives death ; but it is the voice of God declaring, 
Man does live after death. The former was inca- 
pable of carrying us further than a probability, the 
latter lands us in certainty. 

The argument assumes that the Bible is God's 
testimony. If this postulate be not true, of course 
the argument fails. Assuming it to be true, the 



1 10 BE YOND THE. GRA VE. 

argument further posits, by implication, the ade- 
quacy of the witness. This will not be called in 
question. If it is certain that we do not know, it 
is not less certain that the Infinite does know, the 
truth in the premises. His testimony is not an in- 
ference or hearsay, but a personal knowledge. 

One of the first facts of which we become con- 
scious when we place this new object-glass to our 
mental eye is, the sense of assurance which comes 
over us ; out from a region of uncertainty and be- 
wildering shadows we emerge into a serene and 
cloudless day; the specters of doubt flee away, and 
a sense of security and rest comes to us ; we are as 
men worn with fear and uncertainty who have re- 
ceived quieting tidings. 

Leaving the dim lights of the Academy for the 
Temple, going beyond the Philosophers to the Mas- 
ter, we at once exchange the surmises of the foot- 
stool for the assurances of the throne ; inferences 
and doubts make way for certainty. The prophets 
— the greater than the prophets — the Lord of truth 
himself speaks to us. The message is clear, distinct, 
unequivocal : " Life and immortality are brought to 
light." The Gospel is an oratorio of triumph over 
death from beginning to end. It rings with the 
orchestral burst of a celestial anthem. It is as if 
heaven were unveiled and its glories seen by mor- 
tals. Its invisible splendors become as real to us 
as the radiant orbs which deck its vault. Its spirit- 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 1 1 

hosts encircle us, and we feel the thrill of their 
presence. The story of eternal life is recited to us 
with such vividness that we take fire with its rapt- 
ures, and feel the rush and movement of its exulta- 
tion — the thrill of its life. 

The matchless Teacher himself dies before our 
eyes, and enters the grave, that, by rising again, he 
may demonstrate the truth of his teachings, and 
show to sense that death is a vanquished enemy. 
After appearing alive, he mounts the heavens in 
open day, in the presence of many witnesses, pro- 
claiming as his last gospel, that he will come again 
and receive them, and all who have the same pre- 
cious faith, into the same heaven to which he ascends. 
The revelation is finished. Henceforth doubt disap- 
pears, death loses its sting, and the grave becomes 
a dressing-room for immortality. 

It remains that we seek to discover what, if any, 
revelation is made as to the modes and conditions 
of that life. What is the nature of that state upon 
which man enters when he quits this ? What modi- 
fications, if any, does he undergo himself? What 
are the changed conditions under which he will ex- 
ist ? These are the supremely interesting questions 
which must now engage our attention. 

It is fit that the acknowledgment should be made, 
that after all the aid we shall get from revelation the 
subject now broached will be found still shrouded 
in deep obscurity. The great Teacher established 



112 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

the fact of the immortal life, but he has not cleared 
it of mystery. Many questions of intensest interest 
to the affections he has left unanswered. Indeed, 
the sum of what he has made known is, that to the 
holy dead there remains an inconceivably glorious 
immortal life, while, to the unholy, there will be 
an endless existence of shame and misery. No at- 
tempt is made to give exact information touching 
either class. It is certain, even, that most that is 
said is imagery. It is safe to presume that this state 
of facts has both perplexed the faith and saddened 
the affections of most devout believers. The sub- 
ject is by no means as plain as we would like to 
have it. In fact, we want to know, or, at least, 
we want to be able to know, all about it. That ob- 
scure realm is the present home of those we love 
most and best, and it is to be our own eternal home 
■ — so we are assured ; it is not surprising, therefore, 
that we are deeply interested in the minutest de- 
tails of its appearance, of the structure of its society, 
of its precise employments, and every thing else 
that the heart longs to know of its loved. But we 
are constrained to record that on all these points 
the information is the most general imaginable. I 
have searched the sayings of the Master himself, 
word by word, with the assiduity of unappeasable 
desire: and that I might have the advantage of the 
research of others who have pursued the study with 
the same insatiable hunger, I have read widely in 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 1 3 

human books, but nothing that I have been able to 
find lifts the mystery. " It doth not yet appear 
what we shall be." As yet, " we know in part." 

There must be some good reasons why so much 
obscurity remains around a point which it was one 
of the chief objects of revelation to set before us, 
and knowledge respecting which is so supremely 
important. We would not be left to strain our fac- 
ulties so ineffectually if it were not, either that in 
the nature of the case it must needs be there should 
be obscurity, or, that it is best for purposes of dis- 
cipline that it should be so. Perhaps in both parts 
of this statement there is a clew. It is in the order 
of God that we should begin our existence on earth 
under the laws and limitations of sensation. One 
of these laws and limitations is, that in order for us 
clearly to conceive beings and objective things ex- 
ternal to self, they must be such as to be perceived 
by sense. It matters nothing how real they are, or 
how clear the proof of their existence, in the absence 
of this help we can have no distinct idea of them. 
This is a well-known law. To illustrate : the sense 
of sight is the organ through which the concept or 
knowledge of colors is given. If the sense is want- 
ing, as in the case of persons born blind, the idea can 
never be communicated. Words may serve to show 
that there is such a thing as color, that it is wrought 
into forms of most ravishing beauty, that everything 

which the blind touches exhibits it, but he is doomed 
15 



114 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

to be forever destitute of the idea. He has no fac- 
ulty that will reach it. To enable him to compass 
it, we do not know that even God is able, without 
creating the missing sense or its equivalent. The 
same is true of any other sense. The deaf man can 
never have the concept of sound, though every pos- 
sible form and sign and expression be spread before 
him, and though he be placed amid the crash of 
ten thousand thunders, and though he feel the jar 
and vibrations of surrounding elements. He knows 
nothing by which it can be illustrated. Now it is a 
fact that, for the present, God has given us no sense 
by which to perceive the spirit world. Designing us, 
during the present stage of existence, to have to do 
with physical realities chiefly, he has not supplied us 
with an outfit of faculty to bring us into the sensible 
fellowship of spiritual realities. He tells us of them, 
and gives us to understand that we are ultimately 
to become acquainted with them, and, indeed, that 
we are now preparing for their society ; but more 
than this he has made it impossible for us to know. 
As the blind man stands in the midst of beauty 
without perceiving it — as undiscerning as if it were 
not, even when it surrounds and touches him on 
every side ; and as the deaf man stands dumb and 
insensible as a stone in the very focus of the storm 
of ravishing sounds, incapable of knowing the strains 
which thrill others, so, for aught we know, the tran- 
scendent glories of the spiritual universe insphere 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 1 5 

us, and we know them not. The thinness of a film 
separates us from them, but the isolation is com- 
plete. Could some faculty which lies dormant now, 
and the enveloping film of which the skillful surgery 
of death may couch, be called into exercise at this 
moment, the grand procession of " thrones and do- 
minions and principalities and powers " might pass 
before our astonished and enraptured gaze. Possi- 
bly the magnificent spectacle clothes and interpen- 
etrates all grosser things, but for the present they are 
not for us. We walk along the rims of the ineffable 
glory. Some day a wand more deft than Ithuriel's 
spear will touch us, and the material universe will 
blaze with a spiritual splendor which will hide its 
grossness from our view, " and we shall see as we 
are seen, and know as we are known." For the 
present we must be content with an imperfect im- 
agination, which vainly seeks to put clear meaning 
in words which represent realites unknown. The 
chick in the shell lies cramped by a very thin and 
almost transparent film from its heaven, but knows 
it not ; so also do we. 

If it were as perfectly practicable and easy to bring 
spiritual realities within the range of our cognition, 
as it is to set physical realities before us, it is prob- 
ably not best that it should be done. It is tne or- 
der of God that this life should be a schooling for 
the life to come, a pupilage in rudiments. It is con- 
ceivable that further disclosures of the immortal 



Il6 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

state would interfere with the purposes of this. If 
the unseen glories were revealed to us in all their 
measure, exclusion from them might be more than 
we could bear. If our weakness could endure the 
effulgence, it would be unequal to the privation. 
We should waste our years in pining. Grief would 
neutralize all useful activity. To go on patiently 
toiling, and contentedly suffering, in the round of 
useful but wearisome industry, after undue hardship 
and trials and bereavements which break the heart, 
crushes us even now ; what would it be if added to 
it was the sense of exile, which a more vivid view 
of heaven would inevitably beget ? Home-sickness 
would triumph over every other feeling. It was love 
that veiled the glory, disclosing just enough to awak- 
en hope, and restraining the excess that would have 
engendered discontent and despair. The revelation 
is sufficient for faith in that, and not enough to cre- 
ate disrelish and disgust of this. The obscurity is 
tonicful to patience and trust, so that we can both 
quietly endure and rejoicingly wait. At the right 
time the veil will be lifted, and the full tide of life 
will be let in upon us. 

There is, possibly, another reason, it maybe more 
nearly the real one than either of those mentioned ; 
or, what is more probable, one with them : in our 
sinful state, crippled as we are in our moral sensi- 
bilities, some of the noblest elements of the immor- 
tal life would have no attractions for us, and might 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 1 7 

even excite our repugnance. Thus, while we should 
be unduly affected by some aspects, we should be 
either insensible to others or repelled by them. We 
need not only the faculty to discern them, but the 
development to appreciate them. The heaven that 
would entrance some souls to such a degree as to 
disqualify them for present duties, would awaken 
neither admiration nor aspirations in others. How 
wisely the heavenly Father has devised, in giving 
assurances to all, that the recompense he has pro- 
vided will surpass all dreams of the imagination, all 
ideals of hope? He permits us to draw our own 
Elysium, only conditioning us, that it shall be pure 
and holy, the assemblage of regenerate souls, and 
then gives us the assurance that it shall so transcend 
all our ideas that our surprise will be ecstatic. 
" Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have 
entered into the heart of man, the things which God 
hath prepared for them that love him." " For 
our light affliction, which is but for a moment, 
worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal 
weight of glory." As we advance in preparation, 
we shall come into states of mind and affection 
that will make the realities infinitely attractive, and 
to the utmost harmonious with our noblest tastes 
and desires. 

Does the witness give any information on the 
following points ? Are all immortal ? Is conscious- 
ness uninterrupted ? Do all go to the same place 



1 1 8 BE YOND THE GRA VE. 

and condition? Does the body show in the im- 
mortal life ? What kind of employment do they 
have in the immortal life? Do we recognize each 
other in the immortal life ? These points exhaust 
the subject. We will take them up in their order. 

i. Arc all immortal ? There is not perfect agree- 
ment on this point as to the testimony. Most 
critics and believers think the testimony is explicit 
in the affirmative. Some dissent, and insist that 
only the good are immortal. The dissent unques- 
tionably originates in the affections. If the wicked 
are immortal, the teaching seems to be, that their 
immortality will be one of bitterness and sorrow. 
The idea is one at which our nature shudders — 
the nature of all men, good and bad. Any method 
of criticism that would eliminate this doctrine from 
the Scriptures would be welcome to all men. It 
is the great horror that hovers over this matchless 
volume. The very suggestion that only the good, 
to whom existence is blessing, live hereafter, 
while the evil, to whom life would be a curse, are 
permitted to perish as blasted seeds, has power 
in it. Whatever our doubt, it has an ally in our 
sympathies. It is so much less terrible than our 
fears, that it falls upon the shivering spirit like a 
psalm. Our affections are won before the argument 
begins. If Universalism, the doctrine of the final 
and endless holiness and happiness of all men, which, 
governed by mere instinct, we would wish might be 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 1 9 

true, must nevertheless be rejected for want of sup- 
port, the doctrine that at least the wicked will live 
no more forever, and so the fountain of the world's 
woe will be dried up, comes to us as a prophecy of 
sweet things, a shelter from an impending storm. 

The affections being won, the intellect is next as- 
sailed. Here the difficulty is much greater, but the 
argument has a friend at court. Nor is the doc- 
trine without great plausibility to the natural mind. 
But to support it, the advocate is required to per- 
form a matchless feat, to show that revelation teaches 
a doctrine in direct contradiction of that which it 
does teach, which is, in fact, its warp and woof; but, 
Herculean as the task is, the affections prompt the 
effort; 

Much learning in philosophy and certain texts 
of Scripture are deftly wrought into its tissues and 
made to serve its ends. A primary necessity to 
its success is, that it should do away with the idea 
that the soul is an entity distinct from the body — 
the idea that man is a dual being. If it can succeed 
here it will have done two things : it will have dis- 
enchanted us of the idea that we are spirits, it will 
have prepared the way to show that death is utter 
destruction. But we have already shown that the 
argument is against this view. That the case may 
be fairly treated, we call still further attention to 
the subject from the stand-point of revelation. 

A numerous class of Scripture texts is found to 



120 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

serve this purpose — all such as show that the word 
rendered soul is often used to describe the natural life 
of animals as well as men, and that, in fact, the term 
only means wind or breath, and not a spiritual exist- 
ence at all : that, therefore, when the soul of man is 
spoken of, the word only means his breath cf life. 
It is marvelous how effective this sophistry becomes. 
A long string of cases is given in which the word is 
employed in the lower sense, and then it is adroitly 
assumed that it is never used in any other sense, 
and the unsophisticated reader is overwhelmed with 
the discovery that all his life long he has been labor- 
ing under the delusion that he had, or was, a soul, 
when, in fact, all there was of it was, he was an ani- 
mal that breathed ! Of course, when it is found that 
the soul is only the wind which is inhaled and ex- 
haled by the lungs, its dignity is lost, and the view 
of its immortality is reduced to a joke. It is hard 
to suppose that all those who employ this argument 
are uncandid, but it is certain that, whether they in- 
tend it or not, it is grossly misleading, and utterly 
sophistical. 

Such was the poverty of language among the He- 
brews, and, indeed, among all nations anciently, and 
such is its poverty yet, even among the most learned 
and highly cultivated peoples of the globe, that in 
most important matters words have to be carried 
over into figurative and symbolical uses. No lan- 
guage is yet rich enough to have an exact scientific 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 121 

word for each object or mode in the whole circle of 
being. Most important words even yet do double 
service, and are used as names of things totally dis- 
tinct but resembling, or supposed to resemble, in 
some particular. In our own language, for instance, 
the word employed about this same subject, spirit, 
is from spiro, to breathe ; and sometimes is used to 
represent temper, excitement, even that which pro- 
duces excitement, but no one doubts that it has the 
deeper meaning. Again, the word inspiration radi- 
cally means to inhale air, yet nobody imagines that 
therefore this is its only or most important mean- 
ing. So, too, the word heart physiologically means 
an important organ of the body ; but no one imag- 
ines that it has not another and more important 
meaning in our language. 

It is obvious that in cases of this kind it is not 
just to seize upon one meaning, and probably the 
least important, simply because it is primary, and 
force it wherever the word is found. The sense 
in which it is employed must be determined by 
the connection. There can be no safe interpreta- 
tion without observing this rule. Read the text 
with the literal sense of the word, and it will fre- 
quently make nonsense, and contrariwise. That 
must be supposed to be the meaning of the author 
which makes the best sense. 

The Hebrews had two words in most common 

use, which are translated " soul " and " spirit : " 
16 



122 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

ncpJicsJi, the equivalent of psucJie in the Greek, and 
of "soul" or "life" in our vernacular; and rualiJi, 
the equivalent of pncuma in the Greek, and of 
" spirit" in our vernacular. Besides these they hs.d 
several other words, of less frequent and less tech- 
nical use, as ncslidmdJi, in the Greek pnod, rendered 
"breath" and " spirit ; " also leb, in the Greek kar- 
dia, in our language " heart." For a most learned 
and exhaustive criticism of all these forms I refer 
you to Dr. George Bush's work on the soul. The 
result of his research is, that the word ncphcsh, 
or psuche, rendered " soul," radically signifies to 
breathe, to respire, and is so used in the Hebrew 
Scriptures. Seven times they are translated "living 
creatures," or the equivalents of that : eighty times 
translated "life" and its equivalents in the Old Testa- 
ment, and in the New psuche is twenty-three times 
translated in the same way. forty-four times these 
terms denote the bodily appetites and passions : 
one hundred and three times they are used in the 
sense of rational soul, mind, and emotion or affec- 
tions — properly the human soul : fifty-six times they 
are employed in the sense of the human person : 
seventy-six times they are used for one's self, or his 
essential intellectual and moral nature : eighteen 
times they are applied to God : and fourteen times 
to a dead body, or persons after death. To appre- 
ciate the learning in this collation one must procure 
and examine the work. 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 23 

Riiahh, pneuma in the Greek, in our tongue "spir- 
it," he finds used twenty-three times in the sense of 
breath: thirty-nine times in the sense of wind: fif- 
teen times in the sense of animal life and its equiv- 
alents : ninety-five times in the sense of spirit or 
mind, seat of thought, feeling, will, passions, and af- 
fections: thirty-two times of God as a spirit: twenty- 
three times in the sense of a spirit agent, whether 
good or bad angel, demon, or man. 

Neshdmdh, pnoe, "breath," " spirit:" twenty-three 
times in the sense of breath : three times mind, in- 
telligent principle. 

Leb, kardia, "heart :" seventeen times as an organ 
of the body: twenty-five times mind, understand- 
ing — faculty of thinking : thirty-six times as the seat 
of sensation, emotion, love, joy, etc. 

The result of the entire showing is, that while the 
words rendered soul and spirit are also employed 
in other senses as descriptive of life and of living 
beings in common, they are used four hundred and 
sixty-three times as predicates of God and of the 
intellectual and affectional part of man — and, as we 
shall now proceed to show, a great many times specif- 
ically to distinguish between the spiritual and phys- 
ical nature of man, in every one of which cases it 
would make nonsense if they were translated breath 
or mind. Take, for example, the following: — 

" The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, 
saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, 



124 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth 
the spirit of man within him." Zech. xii. I. 

That a distinction between the body and spirit 
is drawn here is obvious, and no one can fail to per- 
ceive that the spirit is regarded as a being shrined 
in the body. The passage is precisely analogous 
to the account of man's creation as given by 
Moses : — 

" And the Lord God formed man of the dust of 
the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath 
of life ; and man became a living soul." Gen. ii, 7. 

Here the shrine is first created out of the earth, 
and afterward the spirit is inbreathed. Take the 
following as another instance of the kind : — 

" And they fell upon their faces, and said, O God, 
the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, 
and wilt thou be wroth with all the congregation ?" 
Num. xvi, 22. 

In this verse God is worshiped as the God of the 
spirits of all flesh, marking the distinction between 
spirit and flesh, and so in the following passages : — 

" Behold, he put no trust in his servants ; and his 
angels he charged with folly : how much less in 
them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation 
is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?" 
Job iv, 18, 19. 

" I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years 
ago, whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether 
out of the body I cannot tell ; God knoweth : such 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 25 

a one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew 
such a man, whether in the body, or out of the 
body, I cannot tell ; God knoweth : how that he 
was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable 
words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter." 
2 Cor. xii, 2-4. 

" Then shall the dust return to the earth as it 
was : and the spirit shall return unto God who gave 
it." Eccles. xii, 7. 

" Now the Egyptians are men, and not God ; and 
their horses flesh, and not spirit. When the Lord 
shall stretch out his hand, both he that helpeth shall 
fall, and he that is holpen shall fall down, and they 
all shall fail together." Isa. xxxi, 3. 

" For what man knoweth the things of a man, 
save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the 
things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of 
God." 1 Cor. ii, 11. 

" The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spir- 
it, that we are the children of God." Romans 
viii, 16. 

" For which cause we faint not ; but though our 
outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed 
day by day." 2 Cor. iv, 16. 

" For ye are bought with a price : therefore glori- 
fy God in your body, and in your spirit, which are 
God's." 1 Cor. vi, 20. 

" But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his 
soul within him shall mourn." Job xiv, 22. 



126 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

11 But there is a spirit in man : and the inspiration 
of the Almighty giveth him understanding." Job 
xxxii, 8. 

Now, this list might be greatly extended, but it 
is not important that it should be. No one can read 
these passages without perceiving that there is a 
fixed and radical distinction between the soul and 
body, and also that the spirit or soul is a real being, 
and the real personal substance of man — the man 
himself. This is the pervading doctrine of revela 
tion ; and to eliminate it from the Bible would be 
to take out the very soul of the volume, and leave 
it a husk of unmeaning words. 

The second class of passages made to do service 
in this argument is all such as represent death as a 
catastrophe, or final end of man ; such as " Man 
dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the 
ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from 
the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up ; so 
man lieth down, and riseth not : till the heavens be 
no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of 
their sleep." Job xiv, 10-12. 

11 The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that 
go down into silence." Psa. cxv, 17. 

" For to him that is joined to all the living there 
is hope : for a living dog is better than a dead lion. 
For the living know that they shall die : but the 
dead know not any thing, neither have they any 
more a reward ; for the memory of them is forgot- 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 27 

ten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their 
envy, is now perished ; neither have they any more 
a portion forever in any thing that is done under 
the sun." Eccles. ix, 4-6. 

" I said in mine heart concerning the estate of 
the sons of men, that God might manifest them, 
and that they might see that they themselves are 
beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men 
befalleth beasts ; even one thing befalleth them : as 
the one dieth, so dieth the other ; yea, they have all 
one breath ; so that a man hath no pre-eminence 
above a beast : for all is vanity. All go unto one 
place ; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again." 
Eccles. iii, 18-20. 

" Behold, for peace I had great bitterness ; but thou 
hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit 
of corruption : for thou hast cast all my sins behind 
thy back. For the grave cannot praise thee, death 
cannot celebrate thee : they that go down into the 
pit cannot hope for thy truth." Isa. xxxviii, 17, 18. 

" For evil doers shall be cut off: but those that 
wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. 
For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be : 
yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it 
shall not be." Psa. xxxvii, 9, 10. 

" Return, O Lord, deliver my soul: O save me 
for thy mercies' sake ! For in death there is no re- 
membrance of thee : in the grave who shall give 
thee thanks?" Psa. vi, 4, 5. 



128 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

These passages seem to teach that death is ex- 
tinction. If they stood alone as exponents of the 
divine doctrine, or even if they were not explained 
by their own surroundings, the inference would be 
inevitable. When they are placed before the mind 
as bearing against an unwelcome doctrine, or in 
support of a position which we desire may be true, 
they are convincing. But no sooner do we place 
ourselves in right relations to them than we find 
that they were not designed to teach the doctrine 
that is inferred from them. 

Read these passages in their connections, and they 
will be found to be either lamentations over the brev- 
ity and emptiness of human life on the earth, or 
the hopelessness and confusion to which evil doers 
will ultimately come, and are not designed at all to 
teach that death is the utter end of man. They 
breathe the despair of man in view of his removal 
from this world as a returnless separation. That 
death is not destructive, on the other hand, is the 
general teaching of the entire volume of revelation, 
and the explicit declaration of specific passages. 

The third class of texts made to do service in this 
argument is such passages as represent the wicked 
as utterly destroyed. 

These passages are cited to prove that the penalty 
of unrepented sin is the extermination or annihilation 
of the offender ; that, therefore, a class of men is not 
immortal. It must be admitted that the words em- 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. I2£ 

ployed do in themselves seem to teach that idea ; 
" destroyed root and branch," " consumed," " per- 
ish," " driven away," " eternal death," " burned up," 
" cut off," " doomed," are wonderfully suggestive of 
utter overthrow, with greatest violence — an eradica- 
tion by wrathful retributive power. If it were in- 
tended to inculcate that idea, it would be difficult 
to find more expressive symbols, and if there were no 
other words and passages, and nothing in the con- 
nection of the passages themselves to interpret them, 
it would be impossible to escape the inference. But 
such is not the case. 

The fourth class is such as represent that eternal 
life is the result of, and dependent on, faith, so that 
where faith does not exist the person perishes at 
death — lives no more. The following are stock pas- 
sages : " And this is life eternal, that they might 
know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom 
thou hast sent." " In him was life ; and the life was 
the light of men." "God sent his only begotten Son 
into the world, that we might live through him." 
11 And we know that the Son of God is come, and 
hath given us an understanding, that we may know 
him that is true ; and we are in him that is true, even 
in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and 
eternal life." " The wages of sin is death ; but the 
gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ 
our Lord." 

From these and like Scriptures it is inferred, 
17 



I30 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

that man as a whole body and spirit is naturally 
mortal, and that he only becomes immortal by spe- 
cial grace through Christ ; that, therefore, all who 
do not attain this special grace do finally and utter- 
ly perish, being left under the dominion of death. 
The language is capable of such a construction. It 
is not surprising that, in view of the relief furnished 
the affections, it should at once and eagerly be ac- 
cepted by many, without further inquiry. The great 
Christian doctrine that sin is punishable with death, 
and that salvation is by faith, is, with a little ingenu- 
ity, made to do service to this construction. It only 
needs to make the term death the equivalent of ex- 
tinction, and the term salvation the equivalent of 
restoration to life, and the argument is complete. 
It does not require much skill to do that. 

Conjointly the arguments have the appearance of 
great strength. They have impressed the popular 
and critical theological thinking of the times. Many 
intelligent and devout people, and teachcrc not a 
few, are half persuaded ; and many more would be 
glad to be persuaded ; but, after all, the case is so 
intrinsically weak that its success, with every wish 
on its side, is slow, and finally impossible. For my- 
self, I am free to say, were it possible I should be a 
convert. The idea of the endless conscious suffering 
of the wicked is the most unwelcome thought ever 
suggested to my mind. My whole soul revolts against 
it. There is no sacrifice I would not willingly make 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. I3I 

to get rid of it. It is the horror of all horrors. Such 
is the attitude of my mind to the question. But 
against my wish, and all the feelings of my soul, I 
am constrained to believe that God sees it differ- 
ently, and with infinitely greater capacity to know 
what is best and proper, and with infinitely greater 
love and tenderness than any of his holiest children 
can claim, has incorporated the dreadful fact of per- 
manent conscious suffering as a possibility in his 
plan. For some cause, too deep for my compre- 
hension, he will allow souls to live forever that will 
not be happy, and to whom existence will be per- 
petual "shame and everlasting contempt." I do not 
now see either the wisdom or goodness of the plan, 
and possibly never may; I even doubt if I ever shall; 
but my faith and confidence are not measured by 
my power of comprehension. 

My belief grows out of the revelation mainly, but 
not entirely. My confidence in the Author is too 
strong to be shaken by my ignorance of his reasons. 
That God is, I know. My intuitions and conscious- 
ness touch him. That he is infinitely holy, and just, 
and good, I cannot doubt. Though I cannot meas- 
ure his thought, and though when I find what it is, 
either by processes of reason or revelation, it does 
not always conform to my own idea — in fact is often 
in conflict with it — I am not disturbed. It is suffi- 
cient that it is his. 

I said that my belief in the dreadful doctrine of 



132 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

the immortality of the wicked grows mainly, but not 
entirely, out of the revelation. 

We have seen that there are reasons for the belief 
that man is a spirit aside from the Bible : reasons so 
cogent as to create faith in ages and places where 
th^ Bible was unknown ; reasons so cogent that were 
all faith in the Bible now destroyed, the thoughtful 
world would find it impossible to divest itself of the 
belief. That men will live forever is also a convic- 
tion which somehow masters the race. The same 
reasons convince us that there are no exceptions ; 
that if one soul is immortal so will all the rest be. 
Some are evil, and we think it would be a good plan 
to expunge them. We know that if they remain 
evil they ought to suffer, for we cannot doubt that 
sin deserves suffering. We don't like suffering. We 
wish the sin and the suffering might somehow be 
wound up ; but do not see that it will, and fear that 
it will not. The conviction of an eternal hell grows 
up alongside of the belief of an eternal heaven. We 
cannot get rid of it. Eternal evil is the fell shadow 
of eternal good. The gigantic gloom of the one 
runs pari passu with the glorious splendor of the 
other. 

We may cavil at it, but will not be able to change 
it. It is not agreeable to our wishes, but the Infi- 
nite does not regulate his plans to that end. Retri- 
bution is never pleasant to the culprit, and suffering 
is never agreeable as an object of contemplation to 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 33 

the merciful ; but the Eternal, who is infinite love, 
turns aside no law of his because of the suffering it 
inflicts. The law is better than the avoidance of its 
penalties, either by reversing them or annihilating 
the miserable victim of them. Gravitation will not 
be suspended to save a city from the descending 
avalanche. Decaying substances will exhale nox- 
ious gases and poisonous malaria, though a nation 
should die. Earthquakes and destructive storms 
will keep their courses though a globe be riven and 
depopulated. Law is supreme. It is so in the 
moral no less than the natural realm. Sin and holi- 
ness will meet their merited recompense. He who 
made law for the sake of good will not suspend it in 
behalf of evil. He will neither lift its demands nor 
remit its penalties to make sin easy or safe. The 
sin is what he hates ; he will not give it franchise or 
immunity in his empire by suspending the law which 
condemns, or neutralizing the curse which follows it. 
If men will transgress, the everlasting law will go 
straight to its mark, as in every other case. The 
blow that lays the culprit low may seem hard and 
cruel, but it is more merciful than that the sinner be 
permitted to do his deadly work with impunity. 
Sin unrestrained is infinitely worse than the endless 
hell which puts it in limits. Annihilate the latter, 
and lawlessness makes the whole universe a worse 
hell than is the one proposed to be abolished. 
We have seen how each of these supports fail to 



134 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

establish the doctrine of the non-immortality of man 
as man : we now place against them the counter ar- 
gument. This comprises all those scriptures which 
represent man as amenable to a future judgment. 
These plainly teach that all men will, after death, 
have to render an account to God, which is impos- 
sible unless their existence is continued beyond 
death. They teach, especially, that the wicked will 
be judged, and will be adjudged to a punishment 
which shall be conscious and endless. This has been 
greatly questioned, but is certainly not disproved. 
Judged by the language employed, and not by sym- 
pathy, it never would have been called in question. 
If the object were to express it, no other language 
could be substituted. The protest is not one on the 
ground of meanings of terms, but wholly one of 
the affections. It is resisted because the idea is not 
agreeable. Agreeableness is neither a test of truth 
nor a criterion of meanings. If what is disagreeable 
were, therefore, false, it might be ground for reject- 
ing a document when it taught unpalatable truths, 
or for correcting the text ; but until that is shown 
the question of likes and dislikes can properly have 
no weight. If it could be shown that the doctrine 
is impossible on any grounds, it might destroy the 
authority of the Bible ; but could not alter the 
meaning of the text. The doctrine is clearly taught, 
and, whether rejected or accepted, cannot be meta- 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 135 

morphosed by adroit tampering with words. If it 
were doubtfully in the text, or if it were found only 
in an obscure part, or if it appeared rarely, however 
fully, I should be inclined to give it up, even though 
I. could not assign good reasons for doing it. I 
would venture to hope that it was a miscopying, or 
interpolation, or change of meaning of words, or 
something of the sort. But when I find it, as I 
think I do, omnipresent in the whole scheme from 
beginning to end of the holy volume — an underly- 
ing cardinal implication throughout, and expressly 
stated many times, I am compelled to give in my 
adhesion. The book masters me as an authority. 
I cannot reject it. I have no skill to torture any 
other meaning out of its language. I am forced to 
believe that it teaches explicitly and uniformly that 
the evil as well as the good are immortal, and that 
heaven and hell are the everlasting abodes of the 
saved or the lost. The eternal God, who is infinite 
in wisdom and goodness, has so ordained, or the 
Bible is singularly hard to understand. 

Do the spirits of men consciously exist in the 
interval between death and the resurrection ? This 
supposed interval is generally called, in theolog- 
ical language, the intermediate state. It embraces 
that indefinite period from the death of the first 
man, or, rather, from the first human death, until 
the end of the present order : a period that now 
extends over six thousand years, and which may 



I36 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

extend, for aught we know, yet millions of years 
more. What is the state of man during that in- 
terval ? We must inevitably feel that the length 
of time included is an important matter to our 
affections. If it were certainly only a few thou- 
sand years, we might feel less solicitude about the 
answer than if it extends up into millions. There 
is no reason to doubt that it will be a long time. 
It has been a long time already since Abel laid his 
head upon the sod, and there is not much sign, we 
think, of the end. Probably we are only yet in the 
beginning. I know there have been fond ideas from 
the earliest Christian times that the end is at hand. 
It is safe to conclude that many weary generations 
will come and go before it reaches us. They are 
waiting for it. Is it a painful waiting? Will it seem 
long to them ? 

There are two or three views on this subject 
which seem to be more or less probable. 

First is the theory that the dead are unconscious 
until the great awakening : it is called the theory of 
the sleep of the soul. It is held in two forms : First, 
those who think the soul material hold that it is 
unconscious because disorganized, and will remain 
so until the reorganization in the resurrection ; the 
error of this theory has been already fully exposed, 
and needs not that it should be further noticed. 
The second form is, that the soul, though a spiritual 
being distinct from the organism, is so dependent 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 37 

upon it for its activity, that when deprived of it, it 
must become inactive, and remain so until it is re- 
stored at the resurrection. This hypothesis is, on 
some grounds, much less objectionable than that of 
the materialist ; but we find it impossible to accept 
it for many reasons, some of which have been stated 
already. We feel a natural repugnance to it. The 
idea of unconsciousness for so vast a period has, to 
the imagination, almost the dreariness of annihila- 
tion. We invest it with a sense of loss that appalls 
us. All this is mere deception of the fancy. If 
the theory should prove true, it would not hurt us 
in the least, except the present pain it gives us. 
The unconscious sleeper would know nothing of it, 
and would awake in the resurrection morning as if 
he had slumbered but for one moment ; and the 
million years he had lost would be no diminution 
of a heritage which includes eternity in its wealth. 
It is not because it implies calamity that we reject 
it. That we know to be an hallucination ; and we 
are free to say that it would relieve some points of 
apparent difficulty if it could be admitted. There 
seems to be a want of fitness in the ad interim state 
in view of a judgment to follow. It is not without 
embarrassment that souls should be supposed to 
enter upon a state of award, whether of happiness 
or misery, and thousands of years subsequently be 
called to judgment. It is confusing to suppose souls 

existing for ages without bodies, and then return- 
18 



T33 BEYOND THE GRAVE, 

ing to organisms, as many seem to believe. All 
thoughtful and candid people do feel that the gen- 
eral doctrine with respect to the intermediate state 
is both obscure and indefinite. But the theory of 
the soul's sleep is unauthorized by reason, and is 
contradicted by revelation. 

The reasons for the first part of the statement have 
been given ; let us attend to the reasons for the sec- 
ond part. The Scriptures teach the doctrine that the 
dead are now conscious. This form of the proposi- 
tion presents the matter in question directly. It is 
the spirit of the whole volume. And we must not 
forget that this is much more conclusive than a few 
specified statements. Error seeks out accidental 
sentences, and hides itself in them, straining inter- 
pretation to conform to the alien and discordant 
idea. Truth is the pervading atmosphere of the 
entire deliverance. From Christ, on through all the 
ages, the Christian commonwealth has known no 
other doctrine. This is only of value as indicat- 
ing the obvious drift of the doctrine. That it has 
rightly caught and interpreted the mind of the 
Spirit appears from specific statements. We rest 
on the following passages. First, the parable of the 
rich man and Lazarus. We call it a parable because 
we do not doubt that it is such. Many most schol- 
arly students regard it as historical. Whichever view 
be taken, the teaching is precisely the same. It is 
unmistakably designed to reveal the doctrine of the 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 39 

future world ; to show how condition there will be 
determined by character, and not by external ap- 
pearances or conditions here ; and, further, to show 
how memory and relations of the now will accom- 
pany us into that state : and it expressly teaches 
that those memories and consciousnesses will con- 
tinue without interruption. The whole scene is laid 
immediately after death, and while the brothers of 
the one party are yet living on the earth. If the 
story teaches any thing, it teaches permanent con- 
sciousness through and beyond death. It must be 
rejected as meaningless, as a mere fancy picture, 
without moral or doctrinal significance, if this view 
be rejected. Of like import is the following passage : 
" Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, 
whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent 
from the Lord : . . . we are confident, I say, and will- 
ing rather to be absent from the body, and to be pres- 
ent with the Lord." 2 Cor. v, 6. Let any one read the 
passage in its connections and he cannot fail to feel 
that it is explicit. The statement begins and pro- 
gresses with the precision of deliberate words : " For 
we know that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle 
were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house 
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For 
in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed 
upon with our house which is from heaven : if so be 
that being clothed we shall not be found naked. 
For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being 



140 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

burdened : not for that we would be unclothed, but 
clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up 
of life. Now he that hath wrought us for the self- 
same thing is God, who also hath given unto us the 
earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always con- 
fident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the 
body, we are absent from the Lord : for we walk by 
faith, not by sight: we are confident, I say, and willing 
rather to be absent from the body, and to be present 
with the Lord." 2 Cor. v, 1-8. Several important 
things are contained in this wonderful passage. It 
distinguishes most plainly between the personal self 
and its dwelling place : and between its present 
house and its future house ; designating the present 
as a tabernacle, indicative of its temporary charac- 
ter, and its future house as a building, the very 
term indicating permanence ; but, not content with 
this, it says expressly, it is eternal and in the heav- 
ens. He then professes his discontent with his 
temporary house, and his longing for his heavenly 
home, which he says is the ultimate purpose of God 
to bestow. Then follows the declaration of Paul's 
unwavering faith : " Therefore we are always confi- 
dent ;" it is his settled state of undoubting certainty, 
" knowing that whilst we are at home in the body," 
the earthly tabernacle, " we are absent from the 
Lord : for we walk by faith, not by sight : we are 
confident, I say, and [therefore] willing rather to 
be absent from the body, [the tabernacle in which 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 141 

we groan,] and to be present with the Lord." A 
more beautiful statement of the doctrine of the spir- 
it's survivance of the body, and its advanced bliss 
and consciousness, could scarcely be put in language. 
The passage is conclusive of the apostle's faith. The 
same sentiment is expressed no less plainly in these 
words: u According to my earnest expectation and 
my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, 
but that with all boldness, as always, so now also, 
Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be 
by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ, 
and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, 
this is the fruit of my labor : yet what I shall choose 
I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, hav- 
ing a desire to depart, and to be with Christ ; which 
is far better: nevertheless to abide in the flesh is 
more needful for you." Phil, i, 20-24. 

The same discrimination between the person and 
his body, and the assurance that the person may 
exist separate from the body, and be gainer by the 
removal, is set forth in the following statement : 
" For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a de- 
sire to depart, [to go forth from the body,] and 
to be with Christ ; which is far better." This ap- 
pears to have been the habitual state of the apos- 
tle's mind, as, indeed, it has been of all eminent 
saints, the feeling of confident faith that absence 
from the earthly life is entrance upon a more bliss- 
ful life, and therefore a desire, when it is the will of 



I4 2 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

God, to depart. To depart : faith looks upon death 
not as destruction, but as a going away, as a going 
home. It is quitting toil and suffering, and leaving 
the tabernacle of clay in ruins, and going on to a 
more exalted form of life. 

The prayer of the dying thief and our Lord's re- 
sponse is conclusive : " Lord, remember me when 
thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto 
him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be 
with me in paradise." Luke xxiii, 42, 43. Did not 
Moses and Elias appear on the mount ? Did not " a 
fellow-servant, one of the prophets," appear to John 
on Patmos ? Did not the martyr Stephen see heaven 
open, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, 
and did he not pray, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit ? " 
Do not the circumstances prove that he desired and 
expected immediate reception by Christ himself? 
Is it not said, that when the dust returns to dust 
the spirit returns to God who gave it ? 

From the nature of the soul, the spirit of faith, 
and the specific teachings of revelation, we are 
constrained to believe that death here is birth into 
the spiritual world, with advanced conditions of 
being and intensified consciousness. Our convic- 
tion on this point finds support, not more in the 
common belief of its truth by Christians than in the 
almost universal experiences of saints in the article 
of death. The soul seems to acquire strange and 
marvelous strength about the time of its departure. 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 143 

As the spiritual world approaches the spiritual con- 
sciousness is singularly quickened. At the moment 
when, from physical weakness and prospect of quit- 
ting earth and familiar forms and loved friends, and 
of passing into unknown conditions, in every way 
filling the imagination with dread, we would expect 
doubt and dismay, the soul becomes suddenly filled 
with preternatural strength ; the life that has been 
all along clouded with fear and uncertainty culmi- 
nates in the very moment of its overthrow in tri- 
umphant assurance ; death, that was always dreaded, 
is hailed with shouts of welcome; the last moments 
are not unfrequently spent in exultant and raptur- 
ous statements of the revelation of hitherto unseen 
glories, and of the coming and presence, not unfre- 
quently, of well known and most beloved friends. 
To children, and saintly women and gifted sages, 
the vision of Stephen is repeated in wondrous 
variety and fullness. Even before they enter 
through the veil the life beyond envelopes them in 
its luster, and words of farewell are lost in speeches 
and looks addressed to the unseen (by us) multi- 
tudes who have come to welcome them home. Un- 
belief scouts such revelations. Let it. The belief 
of them is precious to the instincts and best reason 
and most lustrous faith of the purest and wisest spir- 
its that have ever graced, or do now grace, the earth. 
If, as appears from express revelation, and from 
reason as well, the doctrine is true that man is a 



144 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

spirit ; that there is a great spiritual universe ; that 
the good and holy are a divine brotherhood ; that 
flesh and blood are the walls of separation between 
this and that ; that death opens a door into its glory, 
and that the spiritual consciousness is quickened and 
heightened on its entrance ; and, in fact, that life is 
a journey to its felicities ; why not such experiences 
in the dying moment ? When the spirit reaches its 
goal, when it comes to the line where two worlds 
meet, when it is, in fact, almost through and over, 
why not wave farewells and greetings to those on 
this and that side as it passes the river? Personally, 
I have seen too much to doubt. I no more dare 
disbelieve than I can question my own present con- 
sciousness. 

Is it probable that the spirits of men are wholly 
nude of organism during their existence in the in- 
termediate state? There is not a word of informa- 
tion on that subject. There are no sufficient facts 
known to be the basis of a rational conjecture, un- 
less the disclosures just referred to as made to dying 
saints might furnish some ground. The suggestion 
that the animal soul, as a kind of shroud, a tertiam 
quid — neither spirit nor matter, or a superlative 
composite of matter — survives the body as an or- 
ganism, may have something in it, but we cannot 
get beyond conjecture. The suggestion that angels 
themselves have organism of some ethereal kind is 
probably true. The suggestion that organism is 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 145 

indispensable to the formation of society appears 
probable. The fact that Moses and Elias appeared 
in form intimates it may be a something. But the 
subject is too occult to be brought within the range 
of rational investigation. Any speculation that 
could be advanced, however it might interest us as 
possible, or even probable, could give us no com- 
fort of faith. It suffices that we are informed that 
the departed from this life do exist, that they are 
cognizant of each other, that they have blissful 
fellowship, that they have exalted consciousness. 
These things are revealed. If they need the adden- 
dum of some kind of organism in order to the fill- 
ing out of what is implied in such facts, they will 
have organisms. The point will be further consid- 
ered in connection with the resurrection of the dead. 

Where do the spirits dwell in the interval ? It is 
unknown. Whether their ad interim location, or 
their eternal dwelling-place, is about us, or in some 
remote region, we have no means of absolutely de- 
termining. Many imagine that the case is plainly 
set forth in revelation. We are quite sure they are 
mistaken. 

It seems from many particular passages, and from 
the general drift of revelation — the only source of 
light — that spirits, on quitting the body, do not en- 
ter at once upon their ultimate mode of existence, 
or final destiny. Confining our attention to such 

as are saved, it does not appear that they enter at 
19 



14^ BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

once upon the full inheritance of glory. Far on, 
after the judgment, at the end of the world, there 
seems to be an advance of some kind. Many fan- 
ciful notions have been entertained, but nothing is 
clear in the sacred oracles on the point beyond the 
fact that the saved at death enter a realm of happi- 
ness, which is a prelude to a higher state of bliss, still 
held in reserve. 1 Pet. i, 5. 

The stages of human existence seem to me to 
assume the form of a series of evolutions, from in- 
ferior to increasingly glorious conditions, in a beau- 
tiful order. It is initiated in the darkness of the 
womb. Here its life is undeveloped and uncon- 
scious, but it is a useful period of growth and prep- 
aration. It fits for the on-coming period of con- 
scious and responsible action. The second stage is 
that of existence in the body, as an independent 
personality. It is a period of growing and devel- 
oping intellectual life and of moral conflict, during 
which character is set and partly formed. This 
gives to the present life its real significance. The 
lower nature, the body, is during this period a 
needful appendage to the unfolding both of the 
mental and moral being. The conditions of this 
state, in every particular, seem to advance the being 
until the state itself becomes unadapted to him, and 
it becomes necessary that he should be delivered 
from it. Death opens the door of release — is birth. 
He enters upon a third state, greatly in advance of 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 47 

this. Perhaps the transition is not less than the 
translation from the womb to the life we live in the 
open world — the life of commingled trial and joy, 
which makes up our consciousness from the cradle 
to the grave. In the change we lose our earthly 
bodies, and all conditions of the life we lived in 
them, which we have outgrown, the ends of which 
have been served. We are born into new condi- 
tions, with a psychical body of some kind, which as 
imperceptibly develops while we live as the body of 
the child unconsciously grew in the womb. In the 
new state we live and grow in power and character ; 
have an abode suited to our changed condition; and 
have opened to us employments suitable to advance 
and perfect us in noble manhood. I do not know 
where it is, or what its conditions. It is called 
Paradise. Its duration may be very long and very 
glorious. 

Then comes another, and the final evolution or 
birth, into the full glories of the heavenly world ; 
into an organism generically and lineally connected 
with the one initiated in the womb, worn through- 
out the earthly life, and eliminated by death. Per- 
haps the intermediate stage is as much needed to 
prepare us for that as this is to prepare us for it. I 
am persuaded that my thought is in line with the 
truth ; but it is poor and powerless. The heights 
are too difficult for it. When death opens the first 
portal, and I have passed on through a million years 



J 4 8 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

of rapturous happiness, and the second portal opens, 
I shall know more, and my thought will not halt 
and creep as it does now. 

The Jewish doctrine of a third heaven — a region 
beyond the stars — and the fact that terms are em- 
ployed representing that Christ came down from 
heaven, and ascended up into heaven, and the state- 
ment of Paul to the effect that he was caught up 
into heaven, and all that kind of Scripture, teach 
nothing as to the location of our future heaven. 
They must relate rather to degrees and kinds of ex- 
istence than geographical position. The terms, up 
and down, relating to a globe whose surfaces are 
changing relations to space every moment, and 
whose surfaces point in different directions each 
change, are meaningless as terms of location. There 
is no up or down in such a case, for all points are up 
or down in succession. The magnificent conception 
of Mr. Dick, that the future abode of the saints is 
the grand center of the universe, attracts us. As 
wrought up by him, it seems plausible, but it is 
simply a beautiful imagination. The equally grand 
conception of Mr. Faber, that heaven comprises the 
whole universe, the stars being but the resplendent 
mansions in the heavenly Father's house, is even 
more impressive. Perhaps, when let out of the 
body, we shall find the whole temple of being 
blazing with spiritual splendors. The opening of 
spiritual senses may disclose the wonder of celestial 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 49 

thrones and dominions rising amid and upon all 
concrete forms. But any concept we may form can 
only be an imagination. There are no facts from 
which to deduce valid conclusions. This only is 
made known by the Faithful Witness : it is a vast and 
glorious realm somewhere in the empire of Jehovah, 
which, in our ongoing, we shall reach. Death will 
put us in connection with it. When the doors of 
our earthly prison are battered down we shall find 
celestial highways open and guides waiting. Every 
death-bed is a station on the thoroughfare, and 
when the death knell sounds, a chariot will be at^ 
the door. 

How do the departed employ themselves during 
the interval, and the eternity as well ? No person 
on earth knows, or will ever be able to find out. As 
well ask a babe in the womb what they do in the 
world at whose door-way it waits. It could give, 
probably, not quite so intelligent an answer, but 
the cases would not materially differ. Some things 
we may rest assured of, their life and activities will 
be such as to harmonize with the attributes and 
wants of such beings as they are — such as will con- 
duce to their highest development and noblest en- 
joyment. So much the general information fur- 
nished by revelation and analogy warrants ; more is 
matter of mere conjecture. As knowledge and love 
are the end of all spiritual faculties, and as all activ- 
ities are in their interests, and as their increase and 



I50 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

efflux are the substance of all happiness, it is certain 
that eternity will furnish them the theater, and con- 
stitute the sphere, of their endless growth. How 
they will be conducted along the lines of their re- 
searches, and what will be the peculiar expression 
of their love, or on what principle their varied pur- 
suits and employments will be determined at par- 
ticular times, has not been communicated, and, we 
may venture the surmise, will never be found out 
until we graduate to the celestial state. I have 
some favorite conjectures, in which I find great sat- 
isfaction, which, if I did not know they are mere 
dreams, I would like to state. They could be of 
no benefit, and, therefore, I withhold them. It is a 
point on which every man may have his own psalm, 
with one condition, that he does not seek to impose 
it on others, and that it be in harmony with a holy 
and happy heaven. 

The third point, Do we possess bodies in the im- 
mortal life, and if so, what kind of bodies? This is 
a question about which a vast obscurity gathers, 
and yet which many seem to imagine is set forth 
with unusual fullness and plainness in the holy rev- 
elation. The intimation even of possible difference 
of view or dissent is accounted heresy. There is 
unbecoming impatience and even intolerance of dis- 
cussion. Nothing could be more unwise or more 
unfortunate for the interests of truth. The case is 
one beset with manifold difficulty, and, as much as 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 5 l 

any within the range of Christian thought, requires 
calm and unprejudiced inquiry. It is neither profit- 
able nor Christian to refuse candid discussion. 

Nothing is more certain than that Jesus taught, 
as one of his cardinal truths, the doctrine of the 
resurrection of the dead. Disbelief of that truth is 
as indisputable heresy as disbelief in the divine mis- 
sion of Jesus. " I believe in the resurrection of the 
dead," has been the language of faith in all the 
Christian ages, and must continue to be so in all 
the ages to come, while Jesus remains master in his 
Church. But that wherein the resurrection of the 
dead consists has never been formulated by any 
authority on earth, and perhaps never will be, and 
is not of the substance of faith. It is among the 
questions about which good men may disagree. 
Some will attain to more, some will hold less, intel- 
ligent views. Some will be enslaved by the letter 
of a text, other some will be more anxious to grasp 
the spirit of the revelation. Some will believe with- 
out considering difficulties of reason, others will in- 
quire into reconciling methods of interpretation. 
Let no one assume authority over others. 

Before we proceed to state and examine theories 
of the resurrection, it may be wise to correct some 
misleading preconceptions. Chief among these is 
the groundless imagination that man was designed 
to be immortal as he is ; that but for sin he would 
have remained forever in the body with which he 



152 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

was at first invested — a deathless earthly man. It 
is easy to see how this imagination would become 
misleading in any attempt to conceive or formulate 
the doctrine of the resurrection. The natural re- 
sult would be, to suppose that it simply restores 
the body destroyed, or one substantially like it. 
If the imagination be false, it should be dispelled 
before a theory is formulated. That it is false in 
every particular we think there can be no reason- 
able doubt. It may possibly be true, that natural 
death to man is somehow the result of sin. But if 
true, it is certainly an exceptional case. Death to 
all other creatures was undoubtedly a provision in 
the original constitution of things — is natural. This 
is so important a principle that it may be proper to 
dignify it with more than a simple statement. We 
can here only refer to the sources of proof: these 
are, First, The geological fact, that death reigned 
from the dawn of life, ages before the possibility of 
sin existed. Second, The physiological law, that 
the living tissue is incessantly lapsing into death by 
the processes of life. Third, The physiological fact, 
that some orders of life subsist on the destruction 
of other orders of life ; and that they were original- 
ly designed for that, the proof of which is found in 
their organization. Fourth, The law of fecundation, 
which would render it impossible that life should 
be permanent, as the world and the whole universe 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 153 

would, in a short period, become overstocked. We 
append, elsewhere, a remarkable illustration of this 
latter law. 

Death, then, among earthly races, is natural — cor- 
porate in the original plan of creation. We do not 
assert that this is true of man ; but we do assert 
this, that he was not originally intended to remain 
in a body like that given him in creation. It was a 
temporary arrangement in any event. Had he not 
sinned, and so become subject to death, he would, 
nevertheless, in some method, have been delivered 
from his earthly body. Then we are not to reason 
from this earthly body to the resurrection body. 
If, under the original plan, he would in time have 
put on a new body, unlike the present in its wants, 
and uses, and substances, so, we may infer, will it be 
in the resurrection. 

It may be important that the subject of identity 
should be elucidated. Strictly speaking, when we 
predicate identity of a substance of any kind, we 
mean that the particles or particle of its constitu- 
ents have not changed ; they are still numerically 
and specifically what they were before. Resem- 
blance, however exact, is not identity. When we 
predicate identity of an organism, we mean that 
the organism has not changed its base, or been re- 
placed by another of like kind, however closely re- 
sembling. 
20 



154 BEYOXD THE GRAVE. 

Identity cannot be predicated of the human body, 
as to its substance, any two moments of time. There 
are no two moments, perhaps, in the closest succes- 
sion, in which it does not either gain or lose some 
minute particles; and, however small, the identity 
of aggregate or corporeity is in that degree affected. 
This state of permanent flux is so devastating, that 
in a short time the body has lost every particle of 
its former self, and is another body, as really as if it 
belonged to another man or any other animal. Of 
this there can be no doubt. As to the material 
particles, it has no identity for more than a moment, 
no prolonged unity; but it is a constantly vanish- 
ing quantity. What, then, constitutes the identity 
of the man, that self which is permanent? We an- 
swer, that which is man. Here we have a substance 
no particle of which ever retires to make way for 
another. The presence of this, who is a spirit in a 
body, is permanent, and when we predicate identity 
of the form, we do not say that it is the same at all, 
but we mean that it is the form of a person who 
is permanent. We care nothing about whether it 
has gained or lost fifty of its one hundred and fifty 
pounds in a year or a month ; or whether it has re 
tired one set of particles and taken on an entirely 
new set. It is not of these that we are predicating, 
but of a person who owns them, and who, conscious- 
ly or unconsciously, knows of their coming or going 
while he remains. The thing we mean is, that it is all 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 5 5 

the time the body of which he is the life ; whether 
it is composed of these or those atoms : the sum of 
which is, that the constituents of a human body are 
no part of the identity of a man ; it matters nothing 
when they happen to be connected with him. He 
is no more of a man when he has, and no less a man 
when he has them not. If a miracle could be wrought, 
which no doubt it could, by which two men would 
entirely exchange bodies, as to their substance, in 
one minute, it would not at all affect their personal 
identity, as it does not when the process of change 
extends over seven years. It is sometimes stated, 
that since man is in a body, the body is a part of 
the man-essence. This we constantly disallow. It 
is an accident or appendage of his existence, and 
should never be construed as any part of his essen- 
tial personality. Luke ix, 25, " lose himself," is 
rendered properly his soul or spirit. 

Another thing it may be important to note is, the 
supposable uses of bodies in the next life. I pre- 
sume no one imagines that physical labor of any 
kind will be carried on in the next life, such as agri- 
culture, mechanic arts, planting, and building. If 
not, then those arrangements of the body which are 
designed to serve such purposes will be useless, and 
will scarcely find place in the resurrection body — 
bones, ligaments, and muscle will disappear. It is 
not supposable that wastes of the immortal body 
will need to be repaired by food ; then a stomach 



156 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

will be useless, and all the viscera connected there- 
with : the circulation of blood is an arrangement for 
rebuilding, by carrying the material that is to be 
assimilated to its place in the organism ; but as this 
function will have no more place, this also may be 
supposed to be eliminated : and as the heart serves 
chiefly as a force-pump to keep up the circulation, 
and the lungs as an instrument for purification of 
the blood, we may expect these also to be dismissed. 
I know of no ends to be served in the immortal life 
by any of these organic arrangements, designed to 
subserve industries, alimentation, or procreation, 
matters which pertain to the earthly state exclusive- 
ly : and all analogies warrant the idea of their dis- 
continuance from the organism. Those only may 
be supposed of use which serve sensation, and, in 
some way, minister directly to the spiritual nature 
as means of growth, and of spiritual communion ; 
and these only may be supposed to be carried up in 
the spiritual body; and these, not as they are, but 
with infinite improvement. There is nothing in the 
divine teaching contrary to this view ; and much by 
fair inference in its support. 

There is abundant reason to suppose, that while 
all these grosser functions will cease, a new order of 
ends will arise, such as freedom of the universe, 
ability to travel with great velocity among remote 
worlds, to live in perpetual activity without rest or 
sleep, freedom from accidents or injury from the 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. l$7 

destructive forces of outer elements, and matters of 
this kind. It must be obvious that all this implies 
a marvelous change in the structure and tissues of 
the organism. 

No one can rightly study the problem of the res- 
urrection life, and that wherein the resurrection con- 
sists, without having these considerations in view. 
If it were resurrection to a state similar to this — a 
mere return to the old conditions, except that sin 
and death, and evils connected therewith, were left 
out, then resurrection would mean one thing : if, 
on the contrary, it is resurrection to life under en- 
tirely different conditions — emergence into totally 
dissimilar kinds of good, wants, activities, then res- 
urrection would, must, mean an entirely different 
thing. In the former case we should expect the 
restoration of the old body, or a better one essen- 
tially like it ; in the latter we should expect resur- 
rection to give us an essentially new outfit ; it might 
be the old manse made over, or one new from foun- 
dation to finial. In the former case the change 
might be great, but not radical as to the kind and 
mode of life ; in the latter the change would be rad- 
ical advancement to essentially new and higher con- 
ditions of existence. To our thinking the script- 
ural view is suggestive of the latter rather than the 
former. 

Once more. It is a question which has been mooted 
whether resurrection is predicated of the body or of 



153 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

the person. Ordinarily it is understood of the body, 
but it is a noticeable fact that the body is not once 
directly mentioned in the Scriptures as the subject : 
though there are passages which unmistakably point 
to the body ; as, "Who will change these vile bodies 
and fashion them like unto his glorious body." Can- 
dor requires that we should state this. In every 
case it is the resurrection of the dead — the person wJio 
is dead. Or, more properly still, the resurrection of 
the person who has passed out of a body of flesh and 
blood, and who is, therefore, separated from this life, 
and is hence said to be dead. This fact is made much 
of by the scholars of the New Church faith, and 
becomes a strong argument in their hands against 
the resurrection of the literal body of flesh and blood 
laid aside by death. Death is the withdrawment of 
the person from the body; the ruin or decomposi- 
tion which follows is a natural effect, as its preserva- 
tion was a natural effect of the inherence of the 
person. The resurrection is the standing again of 
the person in a body or after his severance from the 
gross body. The resurrection, therefore, is deliver- 
ance from the gross body, and resumption of life 
without it in the spiritual world. This view, we do 
not doubt, is in the main in the direction of truth, 
but neither can we doubt that it is imperfect, and, 
in some parts, false. 

A man's body, in the earthly state, is a gross 
organism of flesh and blood, arranged, in the inter- 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 59 

ests of the soul, into a deft sensorium ; arranged, in 
its own interest, as a machine for labor, with instru- 
ments for carrying on mechanic arts, husbandry, 
fine arts, and whatever is necessary to the physical 
well-being or to the gratification of the mental tastes 
and desires, and with apparatus for the reception, 
digestion, and assimilation of food, and the rejection 
and removal of unalimental substances ; and for the 
friendship and propagation of its kind. To these 
uses it is adapted, and for them exclusively made, so 
far as appears. Should these ends ever become ob- 
solete, its function would cease, and it might be re- 
moved without damage. 

In the course of an ordinary life-time this body is, 
in fact, as to its discrete particles, many times en- 
tirely removed, and its place supplied by another. 
It is probably safe to suppose that the several bodies 
which gradually but totally vanish particle by parti- 
cle, as we journey through the years, will have no 
connection with the life to come. No one, it is pre- 
sumed, imagines that they will be gathered. There 
is much suggestion in this. Of the particular body 
that happens to be tenanted at death, the general 
opinion is that it will be restored in the resurrection, 
in whole or in part, indeed, that its rebuilding is 
the resurrection which our Saviour teaches. Why 
these particular particles should be gathered, and 
the others not, is a question it might be difficult to 
answer. 



l6o BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

The grounds upon which this belief rests are 
chiefly these : — 

First. The term resurrection — standing again — it 
is insisted, signifies the standing again of the body. 

Second. The fact that Christ was raised in the ex- 
act body which was laid down. It is assumed that 
this is the pattern of our resurrection. 

Third. The passages which speak of the coming 
from the grave in the resurrection. 

Fourth. It is assumed that the body, having been 
companion of the spirit in its sins and obediences, 
must in justice share in the blessings or curse of the 
recompense. 

Finally. Some account is made of the kinship to 
the effect that it would be a disappointment to the 
spirit not to find its exact old partner, the sharer of 
its former joys and sorrows, in its triumphs. Some 
of these reasons are entitled to great weight. The 
last two are simply blind and irrational impulses, 
and utterly groundless and false. The body is in no 
sense the partaker of moral deserts, and can in no 
sense participate in the recompense. Neither sin 
nor virtue can be predicated of any affection or con- 
dition of matter. Reward or punishment is impossi- 
ble to matter. It is a vain imagination to suppose 
it capable of ethical quality or ethical treatment. 
The body may be an instrument of sin or of right- 
eousness, but in no sense a sharer. The sole and 
only agent is the spirit. The body no more enters 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. l6l 

into the merit or demerit, than the clothes or ma- 
terial implements employed. There is no more cer- 
tain truth than this. Ignorance and imagination 
invest the material organism with ethical qualities, 
but fact and reason teach us that it is only a definite 
quantity of oxygen and other gases, fashioned in a 
certain way. 

The affection the soul has for the body, and the 
consequent disappointment it would feel at having 
it displaced by another, is a fond imagination — delu- 
sion. Does it love the body in which it sickens and 
dies better than the one in which it was ruddy with 
youth ? Why, then, shall it feel more regret in giv- 
ing it up? There is no particle of it that it partic- 
ularly cares for. If it should lose atom by atom, as 
in fact it does daily, it would not go into mourning. 
Its mold in the grave will have no special charm for 
it. Let us cease to be the sport of dreams and 
slave of prejudices. 

The remaining three considerations cannot so 
easily be disposed of, and yet there will appear ob- 
vious reasons why they should be scrutinized, and 
interpreted with accommodation. Particularly as 
it is expressly said that " flesh and blood shall not 
inherit the kingdom of God," and as Paul, in his 
illustrative case in direct answer to the question, 
" How are the dead raised up ? and with what body 
do they come?" says explicitly, " Thou fool, that 

which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die : 
21 



1 62 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

and that which thou sowest, thou sozvest not that 
body that shall be, . . . but God giveth it a body 
as it hath pleased him, ... so also is the resurrec- 
tion of the dead." And again, of like import, " We 
know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle 
were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house 
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." These 
are sufficient to justify modesty and hesitation. 

Tl^e word resurrection is strained when it is in- 
sisted that it is equivalent to the statement, that the 
exact body is to be restored. It may even be 
doubted whether it is an assertion concerning any 
part of the body. Its utmost meaning is, that the 
man who is cut down by death shall live and flour- 
ish again — he shall not remain prostrate, but sTiall 
stand again ; death shall not be victor over him. 
The word need have no other meaning than this, 
unless it is forced by its connections. 

The second assumption, that the resurrection of 
Christ is the pattern of our resurrection, is wholly 
without foundation, and is certainly not true. It 
differs in its ends, in its circumstances, its manner, 
and, in fact, in all its characteristics, and is in no 
sense a pattern. It is not at all probable that he 
even put on his glorified body when he rose from 
the dead, any more than it is that the son of the 
widow of Nain or Lazarus did when he restored 
them to life. They were each in their order sub- 
lime miracles, which demonstrated the power of 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 63 

Christ over death ; but neither of them was the put- 
ting on of immortality, and had none of the marks 
of resurrection, as it is to be of the saints. They are 
not patterns, but proofs. If we could reach a knowl- 
edge of Christ's glorified body — the body which he 
assumed at the ascension, and which he took into 
heaven, and in which he now appears — we should 
then have a pattern ; for he " shall change our vile 
body, that it maybe fashioned like unto his glorious 
body ;" but of that glorified body we know nothing, 
except that it is not of the fashion of his earthly 
body. When he assumed it, and how, we know just 
as little as we do of the kind and manner of the 
transforming change which will pass upon his living 
saints at his second coming. To assume to be in- 
formed is to be wise above what is written. The 
fact, then, that he returned to life in the body that 
was crucified and buried, and the fact that others 
were restored in their natural bodies, cannot be 
taken as proof that we are so to be raised. There 
is proof positive that we will not, as we shall show 
further on. It is the image of the heavenly and not 
of the earthy that we are to put on. 

It is possible that they who appeared at the time 
of the crucifixion were in the resurrection state ; and 
that Moses and Elias were in the resurrection state, 
wearing their immortal bodies ; but other cases were 
no more than resuscitation, or resurrections to natural 
life, and no more illustrate the doctrine of the im- 



164 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

mortal life than would the resuscitation of a neigh- 
bor of ours by a miracle were he to remain among 
us for a term of years, buying and selling, and mar- 
rying and having children, and ultimately dying. 
Neither the word resurrection, then, nor the fact 
of our Lord's resurrection, nor other resurrections 
wrought by our Lord, explain or illustrate the res- 
urrection state. And they are never supposed so to 
do in the holy Scriptures. They do exactly this, 
and no more : they show the power of Christ over 
death, and confirm his doctrine of the immortal res- 
urrection life, and all his doctrines as well. What 
the resurrection state is, so far as these events sig- 
nify, remains an open question. There is not a syl- 
lable to the contrary of this in the gospel narrative. 
The miraculous appearances and disappearances of 
Jesus after his resurrection are not in disproof; they 
are only of a piece with the whole history of his 
earthly life, in which the supernatural is as conspic- 
uous as the natural. They touched and handled 
him ; and the fact of his eating several times is 
recorded, which is inconsistent with the idea that 
he was clothed with his resurrected body. He de- 
clared himself to have " flesh and bones," which it is 
expressly said do not inherit the resurrection state. 
The whole account is the simple narrative of a man 
who was condemned to die, who was publicly exe- 
cuted, was dead and buried, and who, on the third 
day, appeared to his friends, and mingled with them 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 65 

for about forty days. The manner of his life among 
them being no more mysterious than it had been 
before he died, and, in fact, creating the idea that 
he was to be permanent with them in the establish- 
ment of an earthly kingdom. On one occasion, in 
fact, he in effect declares that he had not entered 
the resurrection state — he had not yet put off the 
earthly and put on the heavenly. He still stood in 
the flesh, and lived a natural life among them. His 
glorified humanity was assumed at or after the scene 
on Olivet, and no historian has given any account 
of it. Stephen tells of seeing it when heaven opened, 
" and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing 
on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see 
the heavens opened, and the Son of man stand- 
ing on the right hand of God." But he does not 
undertake to describe it, but we may venture to say 
the Son of Mary was greatly changed in the fashion 
and substance of his bodily presence. Paul, also, 
gives an account of seeing him " as of one born out 
of due time." He does not say when ; whether it was 
a form in that light which smote him on his way to 
Damascus, or that time when he was caught up to 
heaven, whether in the body or out of the body he 
could not tell, when he heard words it would not be 
lawful to utter ; but whether this or that he does 
not attempt to describe his appearance. John, the 
beloved, saw him also, in the vision of Patmos. 
With the boldness of love he describes him : "And 



1 66 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

. . . I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst 
of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of* 
man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and 
girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head 
and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow ; 
and his eyes were as a flame of fire ; and his feet 
like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace." 

Who is not reminded in this description of the 
scene at the transfiguration? We shall be changed, 
not like unto the body of the post-resurrection his- 
tory, while he yet tarried among us, but like unto 
the body he received amid the splendor of the 
Olivet scene, when the earthly was exchanged for 
the heavenly. 

It remains that we examine particular passages, 
more particularly describing the resurrection life : 
possibly they may shed some light on our path. 
There are, so far as I know, three views on the 
subject : — 

First. That which teaches a resurrection at some 
remote future, of the precise body laid in the grave. 

Second. A resurrection of a body from some in- 
destructible germ in a remote future. 

Third. A resurrection or emergence at the time 
of death of a spiritual body. 

I have tried, with great honesty and prayerUil 
and patient study, to compare these several theo- 
ries, and elect between them, and I am in candor 
compelled to admit that I cannot reach a conclu- 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 67 

sion. I do not believe that any has the data for an 
undoubted determination. The substance of truth 
lies within the circle of the three, but precisely what 
it is seems to me indeterminable. 

That the first theory is false, so far forth as it 
teaches a literal resurrection of the precise substance 
of the body that dies, I cannot doubt, though there 
are passages which seem to teach it. Such are the 
following : Isa. xxvi, 19 ; Dan. xii, 2 ; John v, 28, 29 ; 
xi, 23, 24; Acts iv, 2; xxiv, 15; 1 Cor. xv, 42; 
1 Thess. iv, 16. If I can understand language, these 
passages do certainly teach a general resurrection 
at the end of the world, and in connection with a 
final and general judgment. The attempt to ex- 
plain them so as to mean a resurrection and judg- 
ment which is now progressing, or so as to refer 
them to any local and temporal event, or to any 
facts in the current of providential history, is not 
satisfactory. It must be that our Lord designed to 
teach some special and grand event, in which all na- 
tions and all men shall simultaneously participate, 
and from which they shall date a new departure, and 
which is in some way connected with their emerg- 
ence from death — the resurrection of the dead. 
That all the dead do then appear in bodies I find 
it impossible to doubt, but that they are substan- 
tially the bodies in which they once lived on the 
earth I cannot for one moment believe. 

Here I rest. To my mind the Master has spoken, 



1 68 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

and I dare not doubt. There are difficulties to my 
tastes and general sense of what is fitting, and some 
difficulties to my reason, but none such as to em- 
barrass my faith in the wisdom of the arrangement. 
For some suitable reason the Infinite has seen fit to 
close up the present order with the spectacular mag- 
nificence of a general judgment, and some kind of 
new departure for the race, called a resurrection ; 
an event in which all the dead shall at one time 
stand before their Judge, who is, also, their Creator 
and Redeemer, also, in the presence of perhaps all 
spiritual orders and beings, receive the sentence 
which shall give them their eternal rank ; an event 
which is the culmination and close of the mediato- 
rial kingdom ; an event which, all in all, may be, 
and probably will be, one of the most significant and 
important in its lessons and impressive influences, 
which ever did or ever will occur, from the inaugu- 
ration of creation to the utmost bounds of eternity. 
Such seem to be the just inferences from the ex- 
press and many-times-repeated language of holy 
writ. The only escape from the inference is, the 
ingenious conception that we are now in the end of 
the world, and that the great judgment is now pro- 
gressing; that the thrones are now set, and that at 
the moment of death we take our place among the 
gathering multitude before the Judge. I find it 
impossible to accept this imaginary fact as the 
meaning of such passages as this : — 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 69 

" When the Son of man shall come in his glory, 
and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit 
upon the throne of his glory : and before him shall 
be gathered all nations : and he shall separate them 
one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep 
from the goats : and he shall set the sheep on his 
right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall 
the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, 
ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom pre- 
pared for you from the foundation of the world : for 
I was ahungered, and ye gave me meat : I was 
thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, 
and ye took me in : naked, and ye clothed me : I 
was sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison, and 
ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer 
him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee ahungered, 
and fed thee ? or thirsty, and gave thee drink ? 
when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in ? or 
naked, and clothed thee ? or when saw we thee 
sick, or in prison, and came unto thee ? And the 
King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say 
unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of 
the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto 
me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left 
hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting 
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels : for I 
was ahungered, and ye gave me no meat : I was 
thirsty, and ye gave me no drink : I was a stranger, 

and ye took me not in : naked, and ye clothed me 
22 



170 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

not : sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. 
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, 
when saw we thee ahungered, or athirst, or a 
stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did 
not minister unto thee ? Then shall he answer 
them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as 
ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it 
not to me. And these shall go away into everlast- 
ing punishment : but the righteous into life eter- 
nal." Matt, xxv, 31-46. 

I have not named the difficulties encompassing 
the doctrine of a literal resurrection of the body laid 
in the grave, or divested by the spirit in death. 
They are many and great, but such as infinite power 
and wisdom could overcome. They are not, there- 
fore, absolutely insurmountable; and as the resur- 
rection is God's work, the magnitude of the diffi- 
culties weighs nothing. I am compelled to reject 
the theory on entirely other grounds. It taxes faith 
for a bootless object. It supposes infinite trouble 
for no adequate end. There is no reason why the 
particular particles that happened to be in a body 
a thousand years ago should be extricated from 
other particles to make a resurrection body of. 
They have no such relation to the personality as to 
make it an object. The idea rests on a mistake. 
There is no significance in the supposed fact. These 
criticisms would be improper if it were a revealed 
doctrine ; but it is not, and, in fact, is in direct an- 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 171 

tagonism to express declarations of the Scriptures. 
In direct answer to the question, " With what body 
do they come ? " — a question as little equivocal as 
language will express — inspiration replies: " That 
which thou sowest is not the body that shall be ;" 
"so also is the resurrection of the dead;" "There is 
a natural body and there is a spiritual body ;" "As 
we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall 
also bear the image of the heavenly;" "Flesh and 
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." 

The doctrine of the resurrection is often referred 
to, and many times asserted. Once it is stated, with 
great particularity, and with manifest purpose to 
give it scientific, exact expression. The apostle, and 
behind him the Holy Spirit, supposes an inquirer, 
in fact an objector, to say : " How are the dead raised 
up?" and, "With what body do they come? " These 
are manifestly two questions. He takes them up in 
their order and frames his answer accordingly. To the 
question, " How are the dead raised up? " he refers 
to the common processes of nature in the vegetable 
world for the answer, assuming a general analogy 
and assigning a common cause. Thou inconsiderate 
man, " that which thou sowest is not quickened, ex- 
cept it die." The problem is the same. The power 
which is adequate in the one case is adequate also 
in the other. "With what body do they come?" 
Inconsiderate man, dost thou inquire this? "That 
which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that 



I7 2 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

shall be, but bare grain, [a single seed,] it may chance 
of wheat, or of some other grain : but God giveth it a 
body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his 
own body." Consider further : " All flesh is not the 
same flesh : but there is one kind of flesh of men, 
another of fishes, and another of birds. There are 
also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial : but the 
glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the 
terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, 
and another glory of the moon, and another glory 
of the stars ; for one star differeth from another 
star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the 
dead." 

The substance of this part of the answer is, that 
as in the springing of seed the product is not of the 
precise substance that dies, but is an evolution from 
it, so is the body of the resurrection. The analogy 
that is asserted is not an analogy of processes, but 
of products. It is not implied that the buried body 
vegetates like a seed of grain and grows another 
body. That is not the point of the illustration. It 
is not pertinent as answer to the questions. The 
questions are as to the power of the resurrection, 
and as to the result — the possibility and the accom- 
plished fact. "How" is it possible? by what power 
" are the dead raised up?" The impossibility was 
evidently in the objector's mind. The answer refers 
him to an equally difficult case, which transpires 
constantly in the course of nature. " With what 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 173 

body do they come ? " It may be that two points of 
difficulty are broached here, What substance is that 
of which the new body is composed ? and, What will 
be its fashion ? To both these aspects of the question 
answer is made : First, It is not the substance of the 
body that was ; this is explicit ; it is not a reproduc- 
tion of the old body. This fact seems to suggest to 
the writer the fecundity of the divine resources, and 
gives rise to the beautiful illustration, " But God 
giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every 
seed its own body. All flesh is not the same flesh : 
but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh 
of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. 
There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: 
but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory 
of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of 
the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another 
glory of the stars ; for one star differeth from an- 
other star in glory." As if he would say, God 
will not find it difficult to devise a suitable body. 
Having furnished such proof of his ability, his 
skill will not fail him now. And then he proceeds 
to state in what particulars, having said before it 
would not be the same body that was cast, it would be 
diverse from it.^The statement is one of the most *r^ 
luminous and beautiful to be found in our language : f 
" So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown 
in corruption, it is raised in incorruption : it is sown 
in dishonor, it is raised in glory : it is sown in weak- 



174 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

ness, it is raised in power : it is sown a natural body, 
it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural 
body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is 
written, The first man Adam was made a living soul ; 
the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. How- 
beit that was not first which is spiritual, but that 
which is natural ; and afterward that which is spir- 
itual. The first man is of the earth, earthy : the 
second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the 
earthy, such are they also that are earthy : and as 
is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. 
And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we 
shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now 
this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot in- 
herit the kingdom of God ; neither doth corruption 
inherit incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery ; 
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last 
trump : for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead 
shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and 
this mortal must put on immortality." 

The analysis of this wonderful statement presents 
the following points : As we are at present, we are 
of the earth, earthy, the children of the first Adam ; 
as we shall be, we will be of the second Adam, the 
Lord from heaven. Then he asserts the similarity of 
the members to the head : " As is the earthy, such 
are they also that are earthy : and as is the heavenly, 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 175 

such are they also that are heavenly." Having as- 
serted the principle of resemblance, he states the 
order : " Howbeit that was not first which is spirit- 
ual, but that which is natural ; and afterward that 
which is spiritual." The order is one of progression 
from inferior to superior conditions : we begin in 
the earthy with the image of the earthy, we come to 
the image and estate of the heavenly ; and we are 
reminded that the image of the earthy cannot carry 
over into the heavenly. Special attention is called 
to this: " Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and 
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither 
doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I 
show you a mystery ; We shall not all sleep," but, 
whether we sleep or not, " we shall all be changed ; " 
then in logical order follows an account of the 
change, showing the particulars in which the bodies 
we shall attain will differ from those we now wear. 
To this especially I now call attention, and it will ap- 
pear how the new bodies are fitted to the new state, 
and how the old bodies are retired as unadapted. 

The only sense in which we can predicate identity 
of body is the permanence and continuity of the 
animating principle. If the same life in a body 
makes it the same body, though not a particle of its 
former substance remains, then there is no difficulty 
in the doctrine of the identity of the resurrection 
body with the body laid aside at death, and, indeed, 
with all the bodies that have vanished during a long 



I70 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

life. If the life force is of the spirit, or even of some 
other indestructible appendage of the spirit, and if 
its presence in an organism makes the identity of 
the organism ; then the permanence or sameness of 
the life force will maintain the identity of the organ- 
ism if it changes every particle of its substance every 
year or every hour. To the doctrine of the iden- 
tity of the resurrection body and the body laid in 
the grave, in this sense, there can be no objection. 
See Dr. Hodge. But the employment of the term 
identity, in this sense, is misleading. Christian doc- 
tors commit a blunder in seeming to be anxious to 
retain terms that belong to vanished theories. They 
know full well that the phrase "identical body" 
was designed to express the precise or substantial 
material particles, as to number, laid in the grave; 
they know that these were supposed to be raised 
up. Why try to justify the retention of the phrase 
when the sense is confessedly surrendered. Either 
stand to it, or relinquish it. We abandon it as mis- 
leading — as the meaningless ghost of an exploded 
idea. The doctrine of the resurrection is a true and 
divine doctrine, but it cannot afford to be loaded 
with phrases that misrepresent it. The propositions 
which the New Testament is responsible tor may 
be summated as follows : — 

First. Resurrection is a predicate of those who, 
rather than that which, dies ; all the dead shall be 
raised into life again. 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 17/ 

Second. The resurrection will be at the end of 
the world, or what is called the last day, and in con- 
nection with Christ's coming to judgment. 

Third. The resurrection of the saints will take 
place first, and will be unto everlasting life, and that 
of the ungodly, following, will be unto everlasting 
damnation. 

Fourth. In the resurrection there will be a defini- 
tive contrast of the bodies raised to the bodies re- 
tired by death. 

Whether the bodies raised up shall consist of any 
part of the material substance of the bodies laid 
down, and if so, what proportion, is not revealed in 
the New Testament, and cannot be known by man ; 
but in what particulars the new will differ from the 
old is minutely described. 

There are some general descriptions which point 
to the subject on which the change is wrought, and 
to the change which is wrought. " Who will change 
our vile body." This language locates the change in 
the body. The adjective points to its order and 
use. It is not descriptive of an ethical quality, but 
rather of the low order and ends of its organization. 
" And fashion it like unto his glorious body." This 
marks the change wrought. Here again the adjec- 
tive implies nothing of ethical quality in the sub- 
ject, but simply increased perfection of fashion and 
uses. The subject is our body. Our body will be 

changed from the present vile one to one fashioned 
23 



178 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

after the glorious body of Christ. The new one 
for which the old one is changed need carry up no 
substance of the old, even as our present body 
carries up nothing from our body that was twenty 
years ago. That the body is the subject of the 
change appears in that entire discussion carried on 
in 1 Cor. xv. The change wrought is described 
with great beauty and minuteness of detail. It is 
the body that is sown. No one can doubt this. 
What is meant by the sowing is not so plain but 
that there may be honest difference of judgment ; 
some suppose the sowing to represent birth, others 
are sure it represents death ; the former think it is 
a description of the body as it is in life, the latter 
do not doubt that it is predicated of the body as it 
will be when it is cast off by the spirit ; but, in fact, 
it is of no consequence which is the true meaning. 
Whether this or that, the thing intended is not af- 
fected. The object is to describe the difference 
between the body in which we live noAV and the 
body in which we shall live hereafter. The state- 
ment is deft and plain. " It [the body we now 
have] is sown in corruption." The word corruption 
describes a quality of the body we now have. The 
term signifies a tendency to decay — to ultimate de- 
composition. It is the equivalent of the statement, 
the body we now have has in it an element of dis- 
organization, which sooner or later must overthow 
and destroy it. This is its nature. The truth of 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 79 

the statement is indisputable. " It is raised in in- 
corruption." Some make much account of the rel- 
ative in this comparison. Not another body, we 
are told, but it, the same body. The grammatical 
construction would seem to imply this : but is it 
certain that it was the meaning in the writer's mind ? 
We doubt. The contrast is between the body a 
man has before death and the body he has after 
death. It, the body he has before death, is cor- 
ruptible. It, the body he has after death, is incor- 
ruptible ; they are not the same, but different. " It 
is raised in incorruption." The body of the resur- 
rection life has no such tendency to disorganization. 
Its constituent particles are not of a kind to be im- 
pressed by the destructive forces which prey on and 
overthrow the present organism. Neither time nor 
attrition of elements touch it. No organism con- 
stituted by the union of earthly elements can have 
this quality. " It is sown in dishonor." There is 
probable reference to its low uses. It is the equiv- 
alent of the statement, This body, that we now 
have, while serving its ends well, and therefore not 
to be despised, is, nevertheless, a body subject to 
base and degrading uses ; the seat of low and mere- 
ly animal passions and lusts and necessities ; and 
often the vile incitant to, and instrument of, sin. 
" It is raised in glory ;" the body that shall be will 
have none of these elements of degradation and 
badges of shame, but will be glorious in its offices, 



l80 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

in its incitants, in its appointments ; purged and 
purified from all that is low and vile, it shall take 
on honor and glory. It shall have no more lusts 
and beastly wants to tear and devour it, but adapta- 
tion to high and noble uses only. This implies a 
radical change of the entire organism. " It is sown 
in weakness." The word here employed signifies 
extreme impotency, and, we doubt not, refers to the 
universal insufficiency of the body, its utter incom- 
petence to serve the high demands of the spirit it 
shrines. It refers (as, indeed, do all the adjectives 
employed) to inherent qualities ; the body that now 
is is inherently weak — insufficient ; it is so consti- 
tuted that its sphere is contracted and its energy 
evanescent ; it is too weak for many uses, and can 
only be used intermittently about the things to 
which it is adapted, and this is of its very nature. 
It was contrived only to do small service, and placed 
in an economy where it would rest a large part of 
the time. Nothing is more apparent than that the 
present organism was not contrived for constant ac- 
tivity. " It is raised in power." The word here 
employed signifies strength, power of achievement, 
sufficiency ; and it marks the fact that the body that 
shall be will have adaptation to greatly enlarged 
and perpetual activity ; it will neither be limited in 
measure nor endurance. We shall find it capable of 
great and unwearying activity. It will be fitted for 
an economy where there is no night, no period for 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. l8l 

repose. " It is sown an animal body :" " it is raised 
a spiritual body." These last words are comprehen- 
sive of the whole change, and indicate the radical 
difference, the difference in the very nature and 
economy of the two bodies — the body that now is 
and that which is to come. The one as constructed 
for the earth, and itself earthy ; the other as con- 
structed for the heavens, and itself heavenly. And, 
having defined the difference, Paul says : " And as we 
have [now] borne the image of the earthy, we shall 
also [then] bear the image of the heavenly." Lifted 
out of " flesh and blood," which " cannot inherit the 
kingdom of God," " we shall be changed in a mo- 
ment, in the twinkling of an eye," " and this mortal 
shall put on immortality," " and so we shall be ever 
witl\ the Lord." This is the crown of all. The 
glorious new body that shall be given us shall never- 
more be subject to death — neither by inherent cor- 
ruptibility nor by any decree of destruction. 

To the view of the resurrection here presented 
there can be no objection. It is in the line of di- 
vine analogies. It is free from grotesque and offen- 
sive implications. It is reasonable. It harmonizes 
with Scripture statements. It meets all the de- 
mands of the affections. It is sublime. It is in ac- 
cord with a plan of progressive glory, according to 
the Pauline idea. 

The resurrection state is the culmination of glori- 
fied humanity ; is the change of the earthly for the 



1 82 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

heavenly ; is the putting off of flesh and blood, and 
the putting on of the spiritual body. The resurrec- 
tion is the standing again after death ; the body of 
the resurrection is the body with which the spirit 
is clothed for its celestial life. The organizing life- 
principle is uninterrupted and identical. It begins 
in the natural, and weaves its curious integuments 
of dust for earthly use ; it weaves the new robes for 
the departing soul ; it fashions the celestial organ- 
ism ; or, more properly, God gives us a body, as it 
hath pleased him, now and beyond the grave. 

If any imagine that they find comfort in the idea 
that the exact oxygen and other elements are gath- 
ered up, a little reflection will suffice to correct the 
delusion. It is the person we want, not the dust he 
wore either in his youth or age. We loved him in 
silken or coarser garments, in the radiance of his 
vigor and in his withered and bowed form. Give 
us back the person with a new body of celestial 
mold, and we shall embrace it with the old death- 
less affection. We loved it in the form in which we 
knew it ere it departed from us. We shall love it 
the more that it will never again sicken and die, 
that its tears will all be wiped away, and that it will 
neither hunger or thirst any more. 

I wish to put on record here that, for myself, 
there is nothing in any particle of flesh or blood 
that ever belonged to my body that creates in me 
the least desire to ever see it again. This body of 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 83 

earthy matter I am perfectly willing to put off, that 
I may put on one that will answer the higher ends 
of my existence better. That body which I look 
for, the resurrection body, with which my Lord 
will clothe me, I am sure will satisfy all my desires, 
whether it be simply a lineal successor of this in 
unbroken continuity, or merely a partaker of its 
"essence or made of its very substance. It suffices 
that I shall rise again in a deathless form, to be 
the inhabitant of a deathless world. For that body 
there is no pain, no want, no decay. 

Beyond the grave we have found that the spirit is 
immortal, and that it will be clothed upon with a 
new form when the old one perishes — " a house not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens" — a house, 
not a tent. Is there any thing further made known? 
We think, yes. The heavenly witness reveals many 
things about that life 

Negatively: In general, it will not be like this 
life ; we may venture to say it will differ in every 
accident. It will have no day and night, " for there 
is no night there;" no rising and setting sun, " iox 
the Lord God and the Lamb are the light of it." 
What a change does all that imply ! No wearisome 
days, no sorrowful nights ; no hunger or thirst ; no 
anxiety or fears ; no envies, no jealousies, no breaches 
of friendship, no sad separations, no distrusts or 
forebodings, no self-reproaches, no enmities, no bit- 
ter regrets, no tears, no heartaches : " And there 



1 84 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor' crying, 
neither shall there be any more pain : for the former 
things are passed away." Leaving sin behind, we 
shall leave all the woes that spring from its deadly 
root ; delivered from the fleshly tenement, we shall 
be delivered from its festering ills, infirmities, and 
cares. The dark cloud of life's brief and troubled 
day will float away into oblivion, or be remembered 
only as a sorrow that is gone. So much is made 
known by " the true and faithful witness." 

" Old things are passed away ; behold, all things 
are become new." " And I saw a new heaven and 
a new earth ; for the first heaven and the first earth 
were passed away." Of the glory of the realm be- 
yond we can know but little. It is unlike anything 
we have experienced : " Eye hath not seen, nor ear 
heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, 
the things which God hath prepared for them that 
love him." What the appearance of that world is, we 
cannot imagine. Scriptural images convey no idea; 
their magnificence dazzles us, but gives no concept. 
Revelation is a blank on the subject, and the soul 
and sense are silent. What the accidents that make 
it desirable — its beauty, its conveniences — we must 
die to know. All that has come to us leaves but a 
bewildering sense, a confused imagination of unim- 
aginable glory. It will not be like our dreams, but 
it will greatly transcend them. So much is implied 
in what is revealed. W^e are just as little informed 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 85 

as to the appearance of celestial beings : what they k 
are in external form, how they are classified, how 
they communicate together, what their friendships, 
how they express them, how they employ their 
time, what constitutes home and society; not a 
word of information imparting definite ideas has 
reached us on these points. The imagery used 
dazzles us: we walk among thrones and dominions; 
principalities and powers; mighty hosts of angels 
and archangels ; multitudes that no man can num- 
ber, who have come " out of great tribulation, and 
who have washed their robes, and made them white 
in the blood of the Lamb." A magnificent pageant 
passes before us, which we believe to be worthy and 
noble ; but, after all, we have no conception of what 
its members are like, or of the accidents of the life 
they live. They are immortal, they are loyal and 
holy ; many of them have lived for centuries, and 
perhaps millions of years ; they are honored and 
illustrious spirits ; they have passed through great 
and memorable epochs, and sublime personal his- 
tories ; but how they live and what honored service 
they do we cannot tell. 

It is revealed that they are spirits, and this fur- 
nishes some clew. Freed from physical drudgery, 
they live as spirits ; their happiness, their pursuits, 
their loves are spiritual. Three things characterize 
spirits : they think, they feel, they will. Their life 

is in knowing, in loving, in free spontaneous self- 
24 



1 86 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

government and volitional activity. There is reason 
to suppose that acquiring knowledge will be their 
great and tireless pursuit ; that they are bound to- 
gether by the strongest love ; that in each other 
they have the greatest happiness ; that they are 
mutually helpful ; that rising above all their loves 
is adoring and worshipful love to their glorious Sov- 
ereign ; that in useful and ecstatic ministries they 
grow up into ever-increasing glory and perfection 
of character. 

To my own mind, when I look in the direction of 
the future, one picture always rises — a picture of 
ravishing beauty. Its essence I believe to be true. 
Its accidents will be more glorious than all that my 
imagination puts into it. It is that of a soul forever 
growing in knowledge, in love, in holy endeavor ; 
that of a vast community of spirits, moving along a 
pathway of light, of ever-expanding excellence and 
glory; brightening as they ascend, becoming more 
and more like the unpicturable pattern of infinite 
perfection ; loving with an ever-deepening love ; 
glowing with an ever-increasing fervor; rejoicing in 
ever-advancing knowledge ; growing in glory and 
power. They are all immortal. There are no fail- 
ures or reverses to any of them. Ages fly away ; 
they soar on with tireless wing. ^Eons and cycles 
advance toward them and retire behind them ; still 
they soar, and shout, and unfold ! 

I am one of that immortal host. Death cannot 



MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. 1 87 

destroy me. I shall live when stars grow dim with 
age. The advancing and retreating aeons shall not 
fade my immortal youth. Thou, Gabriel, that stand- 
est nearest the throne, bright with a brightness that 
dazzles my earth-born vision, rich with the experi- 
ence of uncounted ages, first-born of the sons of 
God, noblest of the archangelic retinue, far on I 
shall stand where thou standest now, rich with an 
equal experience, great with an equal growth ; thou 
wilt have passed on, and, from higher summits, wilt 
gaze back on a still more glorious progress ! 

Beyond the grave ! As the vision rises how this 
side dwindles into nothing — a speck — a moment — 
and its glory and pomp shrink up into the trinkets 
and baubles that amuse an infant for a day. Only 
those things, in the glory of this light, which lay 
hold of immortality seem to have any value. The 
treasures that consume away or burn up with this 
perishable world are not treasui'- Those only that 
we carry beyond are worth the saving. 



1 88 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

THE DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 

The discussion following has been already sub- 
stantially given to the public. It is here repro- 
duced, with the author's revision and corrections : — 

Do souls, in the realm beyond death, meet and recog- 
nize those with whom they were associated in this earthly 
life ? 

There may be subjects of greater practical moment : 
there can scarcely be one of more thrilling interest. It 
has a voice for us all, and, in moments of supremest need, 
comes home to every heart. As often as we think of 
the dead, and remember the love we bore them — and 
when do we not think and remember? — as often as we 
look upon the living, and reflect how soon we shall be 
parted from them — as often as we think of ourselves, of 
the exceeding brevity and uncertainty of the life we are 
now living, and how soon all its joys and sorrows will be 
extinguished in the grave, which stands open to receive 
us — and whenever we are startled with intimations of 
eternity and the awful mysteries it holds in its embrace 
for us — in all such seasons the question crowds upon us 
with mastering influence. Displaced for a little by pres- 
ent urgencies, it soon returns; silenced for a moment, it 
comes back with more clamorous pleadings. 

Nor is it in morbid seasons alone, when the heart is 
smitten with grief, or when meditations of the grave and 
approaching separations cast somber shadows over life, 
or when we stand shivering on the brink, expecting every 
moment when we shall plunge; but at all times, when- 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. I&9 

ever the subject is brought to our notice, it at once 
seizes us with masterful power, and holds us for the 
while its willing captive. It is nature's yearning — love 
cherishing her idols, and refusing to give them up — the 
heart clinging even in death to its treasures. 

The question meets us every-where ; in the cot and 
palace ; trembling on the lips of youth and age ; of 
womanhood and manhood ; coming alike from the re- 
tired and uncultivated; from the stoical and sensitive; 
from all grades and castes of men ; in all states and con- 
ditions of life : " In the next life shall we know and have 
again the loved ones of other days ? Do the unions of 
life carry over and outlast the ravages of death ? " How 
many times it has been propounded to me in whispers, 
by lips trembling with solicitude, speaking the fears and 
hopes of hearts breaking with the pain of uncertainty ! 
It may not be to-day ; but there come moments in every 
life when, were the globe gold, it would be willingly 
given for a contentful answer. The moment is now 
with some of my readers, and to such especially I come 
with greetings and messages of consolation. 

The conceded difficulty of the subject, with its inter- 
est to the affections, furnishes the only reason for the 
discussion. Were the answer perfectly easy and satis- 
factory to all minds, the discussion would be uncalled 
for. The subject is of a class which, from its nature, 
lies exclusively in the domain of faith, and precludes 
possible positive knowledge. The utmost objective point 
of our inquiry is to ascertain whether there is ground 
for faith. We do, and will, believe. We seek to find 
whether our belief is merely the conjecture of the imag- 



es 



190 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

ination to allay the clamor of interested affections, or a 
faith resting, or possible to rest, on rational foundations. 
Have we reason to believe? Many truths, most import- 
ant of all, elude knowledge, but nevertheless furnish 
ample ground of belief. Is this one of them ? Per- 
haps, nay, certainly, no man living has it in his power 
to convince us that of his personal knowledge he can 
affirm or deny. The utmost we can do is, believe or 
disbelieve. The reasons must be for or against faith. 
It is the duty and interest of rational beings to find 
which. This is the object of our search. 

As you expect, we take the affirmative of the question. 
. The dead do rejoin and recognize the friends they knew 
and loved on earth. If we doubted, we could write no 
line that would not pain you to read; no line that would 
not torture us to write. If we disbelieved, neither 
tongue nor pen should ever be permitted to lift the 
napkin from the face of the dead hope. If we knew to 
the contrary, in mercy to mankind we would hide the 
awful secret in our own bosom, and long to terminate 
the anguish of the discovery in the beneficent uncon- 
sciousness of the grave itself, lest in some moment of 
agony it should be wrung from our hearts, and become 
the dreadful heritage of a sorrowful world. I believe, 
therefore I write. 

Before we enter the discussion there are two or three 
preliminary matters which ought to have brief attention. 
Truth is always precise. It has no margins. It is tim 
or that, or more or less; but never both. We need to 
understand precisely what that is which we believe and 
defend, and what it is not. 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 191 

Our thesis does not include the idea that the special 
relationships of this life carry over to the next, and are 
renewed and perpetuated there as here. This is not 
only not probable, but is certainly not the case. We 
refer now to those precious relations constituting the 
family bond : the relation of husband and wife, parent 
and child, brother and sister. The family itself, with 
all its inclusions, is an earthly institution. It typifies 
nothing that is permanent except the one great family 
of which God is the Father, and we children. Reason 
alone would infer the abrogation of all such relations, 
inasmuch as that for which they were instituted termi- 
nates with the present earthly state. But our Lord au- 
thoritatively settles it in precise terms. The occasion 
was the memorable case submitted to him by the Sad- 
ducees as against the doctrine he taught of a resurrec- 
tion of the dead — a doctrine which they rejected — the 
case of the woman who had seven husbands. They 
raised the question : " Therefore in the resurrection 
whose wife shall she be of the seven ? for they all had her." 
To that question " Jesus answered and said unto them, 
Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power 
of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor 
are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in 
heaven." The answer is unequivocal, and settles the 
question by divine authority. The same is doubtless 
true of the paternal relation ; and for the same reason, 
the end or object of the relation ceases with this life. 
The memory of the former relationship will remain, as 
the memory of every other state and event of the earthly 
life, in fullness and completeness; but all that was in- 



192 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

eluded in it and constituted it will cease. Parent and 
child will meet, not now to hold the relation of parent 
and child, but with the recollection that in a former 
state they were so related ; the same will be true of 
husband and wife. The peculiar demands for, and re- 
sponsibilities of, all earthly relations are put off with the 
earthy which shrined them. The husband will not want 
a wife, nor the wife a husband ; the parent will not want 
a child, nor the child a parent. There will be nothing 
remaining in any to make possible either the desire or 
fact of such relations. 

The second thing not implied in our thesis is, the 
continuance of the peculiar loves or affections in the 
next state. I say the peculiar loves. This we think is 
clear, and for the same reasons as above. The relation 
ceasing, and the end for which it was appointed ceasing, 
the peculiar affection, which was its bond and cement, 
will also cease. More plainly, I mean to say that con- 
jugal love, or the love subsisting between husband and 
wife, and making the ground of marriage — and paternal 
and filial love, or the loves subsisting between parent 
and child, making the ground of peculiar mutual obliga- 
tion, and therefore special interest — is an arrangement 
for time and probation, and will not obtain in eternity. 
The husband and wife will not love as husband and wife, 
the parent and child as parent and child ; but a com- 
mon affection, varying it may be — nay, will be — in de- 
gree, will unite them as glorified beings. The peculiar 
affection, in both cases, having been for aw /nd which 
no longer exists, the appointment will also discontinue. 

In all this statement I have italicized the word pecul- 



A 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 193 

iar, and for a reason. Conjugal love and filial and pa- 
rental love, in their highest purity, are God's blessed 
gift to man in his earthly life ; but they are of the earth. 
There is a love that is celestial, and without earthly 
alloy. The two affections grow often together. When 
we say that the peculiar love does not carry over, we do 
not mean that there is not a deeper and holier love 
uniting souls in the life beyond who were so related in 
this life. Whatever may be the common loves of all 
holy beings in eternity — and it is our belief that love is 
the very essence of heaven — we cannot doubt that those 
whom we have loved most here, loved most purely and 
tenderly, will be likely to be dearest to us there. They 
will still be our treasures. All that they ever were to 
us will still be remembered; the hold they had on our 
being will still be felt in more exalted forms. The no- 
ble passion, purified from all alloy, will rise into far 
grander and more ravishing intensity. The imperfect 
earthly love will be transformed into the perfect heav- 
enly. The relations will be sunk, but the bond will be 
tightened. They will be greatly more to us than they 
ever were on earth, and more to us, we may venture to 
believe, than they could have been, had they not been 
bone of our bone and heart of our heart. It is proba- 
ble that, lifted into serene regions of perfect holiness, 
and delivered from all the influence of sense, memory 
will cease to recall all things that would alloy or dis- 
turb the perfect peace and rapturous happiness of the 
soul, whether they be things of a purely personal char- 
acter, or which relate to those we have known and loved. 

If remembered at all, any sting that might have been in 
25 



1 94 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

them will be extracted. But more on this point in the 
progress of this discussion. 

Let us now proceed to a positive view of the subject. 
Our proposition is: "In the next world we shall know 
/ and remember those known in this life." 

The proposition, as I mean it to be understood, has 
these two parts : First, when we pass into the next 
state, we shall carry with us a vivid recollection of this 
state ; of persons, things, and events, such as we take 
with us when we go from one country to another ; from 
England to France, or from France to the United States; 
such as we carry with us through the successive grades 
of natural life. Second, that we shall meet in the next 
state persons known to us in this, and shall recognize 
them as Jane and Mary, Thomas and Samuel, as we 
should recognize them in London or in Paris. 

Upon the first part of the statement there can scarcely 
be two opinions; I think there are not, among people 
whose opinions are entitled to consideration. So far as 
I know, all who believe in future existence at all agree 
that memory will carry over, and that it will be perfect; 
and yet as this point stands in important relations to 
future arguments it may be well to establish it. For- 
tunately, the case is not difficult to make out, both on 
rational and scriptural grounds. We will name both 
classes of proof — rational and scriptural — proofs de- 
duced from the nature of the soul, and proofs from the 
teaching of the word of God. And, first, I suggest, to 
suppose the soul in the future state bereft of memory is 
to suppose it existing in that state without any distinct 
consciousness of ever having existed before, inasmuch 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. I95 

as consciousness of a previous life can be no other than 
consciousness of the memory of what was thought, done, 
and suffered in that state, or a recollection of the expe- 
riences through which it passed. Consciousness is con- 
fined to the active states of the soul. It does not reach 
to the being itself except as active. That is, the only- 
means we have of knowing ourselves as existing is by- 
being conscious of our activity; and the only means we 
have of knowing that we are beings who did exist in the 
past is the consciousness we have of remembering the 
past activities we either suffered or performed — the 
thoughts, loves, and volitions we experienced and exer- 
cised. We retain and restore our former selves wholly 
by restoring these experiences. Destroy them, and 
though we be supposed to have existed, we cannot 
know that we have existed. All previous existence 
must be an utter blank. 

Second, I suggest, that accompanying the loss of the 
memory of past existence, and growing out of it, would 
be the loss of all ideas and knowledge gained, and all char- 
acter acquired, in that state; and the soul thus bereft 
would enter upon its future career, as it entered upon 
this, in utter infancy ; and indeed, morally and intellect- 
ually, it would be a new soul, dating its birth and con- 
sciousness from the moment of its dislodgment from the 
body, just as we date ours with birth. It would be, to 
all intents and purposes, beginning an existence de novo. 
There would be nothing carried over from the former 
existence but a spirit without acquired ideas or charac- 
ter of any kind, or even the knowledge of its previous 
being, if that were possible. To allow this, it would 



I96 BEYOXD THE GRAVE. 

not be unreasonable to suppose that possibly we may 
have already lived through pre-existent states, of which 
we retain no memory; and the doctrine of pre-existence 
in an endless round of transmigrations might then be 
true, and we be wholly unconscious of it. The idea is 
subversive of all established views of psychology, which 
predicate of memory that it is an essential faculty of the 
soul, which remains with it as a part of its integrity. All 
observations, as recorded by the most careful and astute 
observers, tend to this view. Amid all changes, the 
soul chronicles its own history, and is able to identify 
itself by its remembrance of its history. It is as tena- 
cious of the past as it is conscious of the present. It is 
thus, and thus only, that we are able to know of our 
personal identity any two successive moments of time. 
Deprived of it, the self could only know itself as existing 
now, not as having existed yesterday. The idea sup- 
poses death to be different in its effects from what true 
philosophy warrants. The usual, and doubtless true, 
idea, is simply that death is the removal of the soul; its 
dislodgment, not its destruction ; its emergence, in the 
moment of death, into the future world, as a waking out of 
sleep, or as a passage through a dark vale, or over a river, 
transferring its entire self, as it transfers itself through the 
sleeping hours of the night to the waking in the morning 
from one city to another, with full consciousness and tin- 
robbed of its treasures, bearing with it the memory of 
the past into the glory of the future. Even those who 
imagine that the soul remains unconscious during the 
interval between death and the resurrection, hold that 
when it awakes it will be as if it had slept for a moment 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 1 97 

or a night, and, waking, will find itself rehabilitated with 
all its former knowledges and experiences. 

But if these considerations be not sufficient, arising 
as they do from the mere operations of reason, there are 
some others, derived from the word of God, which per- 
fectly settle the case — some direct, some inferential. 
This, after all, is final authority. Neither sense nor rea- 
son furnishes much light on the subject of future exist- 
ence, either as to the fact of it or its mode. Reason 
supplies hints upon which conjectures arise, but is in- 
sufficient to bring contentful knowledge. God's word 
is the city of refuge to the anxious inquirer. If we re- 
ject it, no solid footing remains. What does it teach? 
is, therefore, the great question. Reason will not fail to 
approve what it authorizes ; for the Author of the Bible 
is the Author of reason. Right reason delights to walk 
in its greater light, and joyfully accepts its teaching. 
Appealing to this supreme authority, we find the doc- 
trine we have indicated abundantly established. First. 
It is the pervading doctrine of revelation that the pres- 
ent life is a probation ; the future life a state of rewards; 
thus showing that they stand intimately related, the one 
to the other. What we sow here we reap there ! This 
is a most important fact. Can it be supposed that the 
soul will enjoy a reward or endure a retribution for 
deeds of which it has no recollection? Is the thing 
possible ? Will it suffer perdition without any recollec- 
tion of the sins for which it suffers ? The idea is utterly 
inadmissible ! Will it enjoy the bliss of heaven, praising 
Christ forever as its great Saviour, without any remem- 
brance of the sins and sufferings from whicn ne re- 



I98 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

deemed and saved it? The idea is absurd! Thus, 
whether we contemplate the bliss of the finally saved, 
or the sorrows of the finally lost, we are equally forced 
to the conclusion that they will have a vivid and thor- 
ough memory of the present state. 

It is absolutely impossible that there should be either 
rewards or punishments, in the proper sense of the 
words, and the soul be uninformed of the occasion of 
the suffering or enjoyment. Suffering may be inflicted 
and enjoyment bestowed without the idea of recom- 
pense ; but the idea of recompense cannot exist in the 
soul without the knowledge of that which occasions it ; 
and so a spirit cannot know or think itself as rewarded 
without the idea of that for which it is rewarded. To 
be conscious of a state of reward and retribution, heaven 
and hell must be known in their relations to this life. 
They have no moral significance without this. 

But if the very idea of reward in future life for deeds 
done in this implies the memory of such deeds, more 
strongly still do the Scripture accounts of the judgment, 
in which the rewards are to be given. Take a class of 
passages in which it is said account will be rendered 
to God in that day: "But I say unto you, that every 
idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account 
thereof in the day of judgment." If there were not an- 
other, this passage is sufficient. " Every one shall give 
account of himself to God." "Who shall give account 
to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead." 
Further, it is especially said, " Every man's work shall 
be made manifest : for the day shall declare it, because 
it shall be revealed by fire." "Therefore, judge noth- 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 1 99 

ing before the time, until the Lord come, who both 
will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and 
will make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then 
shall every man have praise of God." Take the pas- 
sage from Matthew : — 

"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and 
all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the 
throne of his glory : and before him shall be gathered 
all nations : and he shall separate them one from an- 
other, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: 
and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the 
goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them 
on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, in- 
herit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation 
of the world : for I was ahungered, and ye gave me 
meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I was a 
stranger, and ye took me in : naked, and ye clothed me : 
I was sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison, and ye 
came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, 
saying, Lord, when saw we thee ahungered, and fed 
thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we 
thee a stranger, and took thee in ? or naked, and clothed 
thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and 
came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say 
unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have 
done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye 
have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them 
on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlast- 
ing fire, prepared for the devil and his angels : for I was 
ahungered, and ye gave me no meat : I was thirsty, 
and ye gave me no drink : I was a stranger, and ye took 



200 BEYOXD THE CRAVE. 

me not in : naked, and ye clothed me not : sick, and in 
prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also 
answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee ahun- 
gered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or 
in prison, and did not minister unto thee ? Then 
shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, 
Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of 
these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away 
into everlasting punishment : but the righteous into life 
eternal." 

Many passages of like kind might be added; these 
will suffice. They establish, beyond all dispute, that at 
the judgment a thorough memory of tlie entire life will 
remain, so minute as to embrace thoughts, words, feel- 
ings, and actions. No one can read these passages and 
fail to be convinced, if they be true, that in the final 
judgment of men, whenever and however that may be, 
the souls judged will have an exact memory and con- 
sciousness of all the matters for which they are judged. 
The statements are wonderfully comprehensive, imply- 
ing that there will be such a quickening of memory as 
to restore all thoughts, all deeds, all feelings, all mo- 
tives, so that not only the external acts will pass in re- 
view, but the very secrets of the soul. 

The passage from Matthew, in that wonderful twen- 
ty-fifth chapter, is irresistible. Therein it is declared 
that the souls of all the dead will stand before God ; and 
in the judgment it will be specifically stated what their 
acts were toward each other for which they aie then 
and there condemned or approved; which implies that 
they will remember both the acts and the persons. 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 201 

There could be no judgment without this. The court 
must have the case, and so must the party judged, if a 
sense of justice is to go with them from the judgment- 
seat. The proof is positive that memory survives death. 
This is all we now claim. 

But the case is too plain to need more extended ex- 
aminations. Let us now, therefore, proceed to the sec- 
ond part : The souls of the departed will recognize 
those known in this state. That is, souls do meet in 
the next world, and recognize each other as John or \. 
Mary, known in a former state. This proposition differs 
from the former in this particular : it includes identifi- 
cation of persons, as well as personal memory of rela- 
tions to them, or knowledge of them, in a previous state. 
It involves, not only that souls will carry with them the 
recollection that they once knew, in a former state, cer- 
tain persons by certain names ; but more, that this par- 
ticular spirit now present was that very person called 
father; this one, the person called son ; that one, wife A 
these, friends, of various degrees of intimacy, known at 
particular times and places, and bearing certain rela- 
tions to our acts and affections. 

This is the proposition we are now to establish. The 
range of argument is so wide that we cannot undertake 
to exhaust it. The first point we make is this : The 
souls of the departed will exist in society, will meet in 
the next state; by which I mean they will dwell in a 
place or places where they will be together and have 
intercourse. This is important. It is not in my plan 
to raise the question, sometimes mooted, of the materi- 
ality of the abode of the departed, saved or lost; or to 
26 



202 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

indicate any opinion as to the locality of the places they 
shall inhabit. This one point only is now made : they 
will exist, somewhere and in some method, in society. 
I am free to acknowledge that, for myself, I know of 
nothing in revelation, and that is our only authority, 
that makes known any thing about the precise place in 
the universe where the saved or lost will finally dwell ; 
nor do I know any thing in revelation which gives me a 
clear and definite idea of the manner of their existence. 
There are hints, but they are not such as to admit dog- 
matism. They will exist, and it is now my object to 
show that they will exist together. 

I might urge, as a final consideration, and one of great 
weight, the universality and reasonableness of the belief; 
but as nothing short of revelation will be deemed final, 
and as it is final, our appeal will be to it alone. Still, 
let us for a moment look at the reasonableness of the 
supposition, aside from express revelation. Man is con- 
stituted for fellowship. His nature is constructed upon 
that idea. It is impossible to doubt this. Why should 
his history become a violent contradiction to his nature ? 
Why should he, after that he is made and endowed foi 
fellowship, become forever isolated and secluded ? If 
his nature tend to the fellowship of those of his own 
kind with a longing that is unappeasable, why suppose 
that he will become forever an alien to his own kind? 
If, while in the body, he cannot content himself with 
exile and loneliness, why, out of the body, suppose it 
will be otherwise ? Is it not the first and last and 
strongest instinct, wish, and desire of his heart, to find 
companionship ? Does he not, for the sake of it, endure 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 203 

all toil and hardship and peril ? What is it that asserts 
its sway in death if it be not the hope and longing to 
join a celestial brotherhood ? What is it that solaces for 
the grief of parting with the living but the idea of join- 
ing the multitudes believed to be waiting on the other 
shore ? The sobbings of the farewell mingle with the 
kisses of the welcome. What says the word ? A few 
passages will suffice. 

From the Old Testament we select all that class 
which represent the deceased patriarchs as gathered 
with and to their fathers or people, in which an obvious 
allusion is made, not to the grave, but to the concourse 
of departed spirits. This is well known to have always 
been the understanding of the people whose worthies 
are referred to. " The Hebrews regarded life as a 
journey, a pilgrimage, on the face of the earth. The 
traveler, as they supposed, when he arrived at the end 
of his journey, which happened when he died, was re- 
ceived into the company of his ancestors who had gone 
before him. Opinions of this kind are the origin and 
ground of such phrases as ' to be gathered unto one's peo- 
ple,' 'to go to one's fathers.' " — Jahn s Archceology . Other 
particular passages, which will be quoted as bearing 
directly on the point of recognition, need not be named 
here. The New Testament is explicit. We will cite 
a few passages only to establish the principle. Take 
the words of Christ to his disciples, and through them 
to all Christians : " I go to prepare a place for you ; and 
if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again 
and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye 
may be also." Again: "Father,! will that they also 



204 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that 
they may behold my glory." 

Thus the saints are to be gathered to one place, where 
Christ is. The indirect assertion here is equal to the 
most direct and positive declaration. It shows that it is 
the will and purpose of the Redeemer to bring all the 
redeemed into the place where he himself is, that they 
may constitute a glorified society. To that end he goes 
to prepare a place for them, in which they shall all alike 
behold and share his glory. No just criticism can ex- 
tort from the words any other meaning. Many other 
passages are in accord with this interpretation. 

"Therefore are they before the throne of God, and 
serve him day and night in his temple ; and he that sit- 
teth on the throne shall dwell among them." "And I 
heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold the 
tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with 
them, and they shall be his people ; and God himself 
shall be with them, and be their God." " For the Lord 
himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the 
voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God ; and 
the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are 
alive and remain shall be caught up together with them 
in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air ; and so shall 
we ever be with the Lord." "But ye are come unto 
Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the 
heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of 
angels, to the general assembly and church of the first- 
born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge 
of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and 
to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 205 

blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than 
that of Abel." " After this I beheld, and lo, a great mul- 
titude, which no man could number, of all nations, and 
kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the 
throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, 
and palms in their hands ; and cried with a loud 
voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon 
the throne, and unto the Lamb. . . . And one of the 
elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which 
are arrayed in white robes ? and whence came they ? 
And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said 
to me, These are they which came out of great tribula- 
tion, and have washed their robes, and made them white 
in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the 
throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple." 

But I need not extend. These texts establish all that 
we claim now : that souls will be gathered together in 
the same place, constituting an assemblage and society, 
taking part in the' same religious rites, joining their 
voices and uniting their hearts in the same strains and 
sentiments of worship. These and kindred Scriptures 
have inspired the whole Church of Christ, along all the 
Christian ages, with the idea of heaven as the final home 
where all the redeemed family meet and abide forever. 
Whatever diversities have existed on other subjects, on 
this there has been scarcely any disagreement. Living 
and dying, this hope has cheered all believers. There 
can be no question as to its scriptural authority. Here 
we rest it. 

The next point I make is: Thus assembled in one 
place, and united in one society, spirits will have knowl- 



206 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

edge of each other's presence, and will recognize those 
known in a former state. 

It is strange that a doubt ever should have arisen on 
the subject. The fact can only be explained on the 
principle that love takes fright when the slightest possi- 
bility of disappointment exists; and fear engenders 
doubt where no doubt is. The affections, in matters of 
great concern, demand absolute certainty, and when 
this cannot be attained, their repose is disturbed. The 
whole subject of the future life, both as to the fact and 
conditions, is matter of faith, not of knowledge. Sub- 
jects of faith, as a rule, may be subjects of doubt; and 
especially where the affections are interested. But let 
us attend to the argument. 

The first consideration I name is : The common con- 
sent of mankind. This, while it might not be final, I 
must think is of great weight. 

I have said the common consent of mankind. This 
may sound strange. The general supposition among 
Christians, perhaps, is, that they alone entertain this 
belief. A greater mistake could scarcely be conceived. 
It is, and has been, in some form the common heritage 
of humanity. It is not in contradiction of this state- 
ment that some men, and even some skeptical periods, 
have called it in question, or even denied it. There is 
no matter of knowledge or faith that has not been dis- 
puted. It remains true that no nation has been without 
it. It is traceable to the earliest antiquity, and has .de- 
scended, as a common heir-loom, to all the peoples of 
the globe. To whatever cause we ascribe it, its truth 
seems probable. The universal judgment so stamps it; 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 207 

the common instinct pronounces in its favor. Upon 
these grounds alone it deserves high consideration, un- 
til reasons are shown against it. As beliefs always im- 
ply supposed reasons competent to produce them, a uni- 
versal belief would seem to imply a universal and strong 
ground in its favor ; or at least it must show so much 
that it is not esteemed repugnant to common reason. 
To strengthen this conviction, and, it may be, the orig- 
inal ground of it, is this further fact : We feel that it 
is a want of our nature — an implanted or constitutional 
demand. We yearn for it ; our nature craves it ; we 
feel that it must be so. The unappeasable desire con- 
structs for itself the hope and faith. Who dares say that 
the inference is irrational ? All analogies, at least, indi- 
cate the probable supply to an appetite as natural and 
inevitable as that for food. As well suppose a benign 
Creator to endow the stomach with eternal craving with- 
out providing a supply ! Thus, in the very longing of 
humanity, and in the common faith of the race, under 
all conditions, we find, as we think, a strong reason in 
favor of the doctrine : the voice of God in the heart 
of his child. He who creates the hunger of the affec- 
tions is also the author of the contentful faith. The 
one is prophetic of the other. What love longs for, and 
reason dimly discerns, faith, with a vision of longer 
range and more delicate perception, detects as real, and 
clings to as the supremest of all treasures. Who dares 
say that what is .concealed from sense, and what even 
transcends reason, may not be revealed in some way to 
the inner sense — consciousness itself? 

We name as a second consideration of weight, an in- 



208 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

ference from premises already established ; namely, first, 
memory, which we have seen will remain to the soul 
when it passes into the next world. This has been 
clearly shown both from reason and revelation. Second, 
it has been shown that in the next world men who lived 
together upon the earth, and were intimate in all social 
relations, will meet and dwell together in one place and 
in intimate social intercourse, communing together. 
Now, the inference, if not perfectly inevitable, is cer- 
tainly of the highest probability, that, so communing and 
so remembering, they will in some method recognize 
each other. 

There are two methods by which this would almost 
inevitably be brought about. 

Take first the most indirect — an interchange of remi- 
niscence. That the fellowship will be intellectual and 
affectional must result from the nature of the beings; 
and from the same cause it must, to a large extent, em- 
brace matters of personal history, observation, and ex- 
perience. It is impossible to conceive of spiritual be- 
ings dwelling together without such intercourse. They 
have no other life but that of ideas and loves, and the 
high activities which spring from them. Their whole na- 
ture would have to change radically ; they would have to 
become other beings than they are, to make it possible 
for them to exist together in oblivion of the past. They 
must enter into each other's life, or cease ii be of the 
kind of men. Inevitably, if in no other way, out of this 
must spring mutual recognition. They cannot progress 
far before they reach common ground. Two spirits 
communicating together recur to past life. An event is 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 209 

introduced known to both. Upon inquiry, they find 
they are acquaintances — old familiar friends — husband 
and wife. 

The second is, direct recognition from external ap- 
pearances — the common means of recognition here. 
This will be immediate. So soon as a friend is seen he 
will be known, as we know the respective members of 
our families after a year's separation. This I must 
think will be a universal fact, and will preclude the 
tedious method already named. If recognition were not 
immediate, it would inevitably take place in the method 
already indicated ; but it will be direct and immediate. 
This will preclude the other. Why not ? 

Should it be objected that spirits have no external ap- 
pearance, no form, cannot be seen, we answer in two 
parts : — 

First. It is an assumption that finite spiritual beings 
are ever formless, and still more a groundless supposition 
that, because they are invisible to us, they are therefore 
invisible to each other. Our senses limit our percep- 
tions to material objects; but there is every reason to 
believe that this is a temporary arrangement. When we 
become spiritual, the requisite faculties will exist to put 
us in harmony with our new circumstances. When we 
need to communicate with spirits, we will come to the 
knowledge of the method. 

Second. The Scripture teaching is explicit, that they 
are formal and visible in heaven. Should it be objected 
again that, if visible and formal, they all resemble, and 
so qajinot be distinguished one from another, which is 

the vain imagination of some ; or, if thev do not resem- 

27 



2IO BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

ble, they at least have no badges or resemblances to their 
former selves remaining, by which they were known 
upon earth, which is the baseless idea of others — our 
answer is again in two parts : — 

i. That they look exactly alike, or so nearly so as to 
be indistinguishable, is not only an assumption, but an 
assumption contrary to all analogies, which show diver- 
sity, and not uniformity, to be a divine law; and also to 
the Scriptures, which represent the glorified as differing 
and distinguishable in the future life : They were not 
alike when upon earth, why should they be alike in 
heaven? No two things were ever known which were 
indistinguishable. Why shall the eternal law be re- 
versed ? If forms carved in the crude elements of earth 
are endlessly varied, we may be sure the heavenly or- 
ders will not be less individualized. 

2. -That the spirit, when disembodied, retains no re- 
semblance to the former person, no marks or badges of 
any kind remaining, is also sheer assumption, and against 
the probabilities in the case. 

It is not for us to explain how such resemblances will 
be carried over and discovered ; it is sufficient that it 
is neither impossible nor improbable that they will be. 
The spiritual even here shines through the gross phys- 
ical, and becomes the most expressive manifestation of 
the person. The expression of the countenance sinks 
deeper and tarries longer than mere features. The 
spiritual organism will but unfold that expression in its 
ideal perfection. Freed from the rough marrings of the 
rude casket, we shall find the real person in its truest 
and most unblemished revelation. As the soul is the 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 211 

deepest seat of personality, it will, when it reaches its 
fullest expression, most perfectly disclose the person 
we have known and loved. I do not myself believe that 
the cognition will be because of perpetuated exact re- 
semblance of form and feature. Form and feature here 
are often blemishes, disguises, malformations. Souls, 
clothed in spiritual bodies, will appear in perfect dress, 
with a beauty far surpassing any thing we knew of them 
when they were with us in houses of clay. Neverthe- 
less, we shall see and know them in their altered dress 
— know and see them as we did not on the earth — know 
them fully. Allowing this to be so, recognition would 
be immediate and inevitable ! 

And that it is so, leaving the region of conjecture 
alone, Scripture makes certain ; that is, that beings in 
the next world are formal and distinguishable, and re- 
tain resemblances to their former person when in the 
body, is plainly the Scripture doctrine. To support the 
position I allege two cases : The case of Samuel appear- 
ing to Saul, and the case of Moses and Elias appear- 
ing with our Saviour on the mount of transfiguration. 
Whatever view we take of the two cases, there can be 
no difference of judgment as to what they are intended 
to teach, and do teach, on the point in question. That 
in both cases they are true and veritable history we are 
unable to find any reason for doubt; but whether this 
be so or not does not affect the teaching. The dead are 
represented as appearing in such form as to be known. 
This is all that, for the present, we claim. Further evi- 
dence will appear on this point in the next argument. 

But if any should still find difficulty on the point of 



212 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

objection now noticed, the resurrection of the body 
must displace it entirely. No one is able to determine 
authoritatively what is the precise doctrine on the sub- 
ject of the resurrection. Many claim to, but it is a vain 
boast. There will be a resurrection of the dead— that 
we know. What the glory of it will be, we shall know 
hereafter. That the raised immortalized humanity will 
be greatly changed, we know; but what the precise na- 
ture and inclusions of the change, we shall know only 
when we behold and experience it. But whatever it is, it 
furnishes the means of perpetuated resemblances to the 
fashion of the present form. Possibly we shall find the 
change much less than we imagine — simply perfecting 
the being. 

The next and final consideration I have to present in 
favor of recognition is derived from the express teaching 
of revelation. 

The argument, even now, I think conclusive, could 
nothing more be alleged ; but God has been pleased to 
express himself plainly and directly upon the point, 
which puts it to rest forever with all who receive his 
teaching. We shall make the argument turn upon a 
few passages. 

The first text I offer is taken from Isaiah. It is a 
prophecy against the king of Babylon. It announces 
his downfall, and describes the sensation it would create 
on earth and also in the eternal world. It is a passage 
of great poetic beauty and high wrought imagery; but 
it is a revelation also of doctrine and a history of fact. 
(Chap, xiv.) " Hell [sheol, the invisible world] from be- 
neath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming : it 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 21 3 

stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of 
the earth ; it hath raised up from their thrones all the 
kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto 
thee, Art thou also become weak as we ? art thou be- 
come like unto us?" etc. The obvious announcement 
of the passage is the death of the wicked king and his 
entrance into the next world, where he is known and 
recognized by the previously dead. It is true that this 
passage seems to be a highly imaginative picture of the 
humiliation of a proud monarch, when death dashes his 
scepter from his hand, and he descends from his pomp 
to the level of other perished despots, once as potent as 
himself; and so it may require to be interpreted with 
allowance ; but, however this may be, the chief assump- 
tion on which it rests must be supposed to be believed 
and accepted by the writer; namely, that the introduc- 
tion of spirits into the spiritual world is an event well 
known to those dwelling there, and also that the former 
history of the newly arrived is known likewise. This is 
the least significance the passage can possibly have. 

The next text I give as direct is the notable parable 
of the rich man and Lazarus, as found in the sixteenth 
chapter of St. Luke. 

"There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in 
purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: 
and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which 
was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed 
with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: 
moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it 
came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the 
angels into Abraham's bosom : the rich man also died, 



214 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

and was buried; and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being 
in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus 
in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, 
have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip 
the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue ; for I 
am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, 
remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good 
things, and likewise Lazarus evil things : but now he is 
comforted, and thou art tormented. And besides all 
this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed : so 
that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; 
neither can they pass to us, that would come from 
thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, 
that thou wouldest send him to my father's house : for 
I have five brethren ; that he may testify unto them, lest 
they also come into this place of torment. Abraham 
saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets ; let 
them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: 
but if one went unto them from the dead, they will re- 
pent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses 
and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though 
one rose from the dead." 

This case is explicit and covers the whole ground. 
It has this advantage, that it is the calm utterance of 
Him who never spoke with passion, and that it was de- 
signed to convey in the plainest manner his doctrine 
touching the state of the dead. The rich man sees 
Abraham : Abraham has therefore a visible and distin- 
guishable person. He sees Lazarus in his bosom: the 
same is true of him therefore. He knows them : spirits 
therefore have the means of knowing each other. He 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 2 1 $ 

remembers this life : memory therefore remains. The 
case covers the whole ground. 

But the principles that hold in this case hold in every 
case. The power by which this particular recognition 
was made implies like recognition in every case. There 
is nothing to make it exceptional. Nor does it change 
its form to call it a parable. We do not for a moment 
suppose it a veritable history. It is probably, as we 
think, purely a creation of our Saviour's mind. But it 
was created to teach truth. It is a statement of his 
doctrine in the substance of its utterance. If he did not 
set forth definitive ideas, he never did in any of his pub- 
lic or private sermons. The text must be abandoned, 
or the doctrine admitted. If the text is the word of 
God, no other is needed to establish the point for which 
we contend. 

Not less striking is the text containing the speech of 
David, in his lamentation over his child: "I shall go to 
him, but he shall not return to me." 2 Sam. xii, 23. The 
whole history shows that these are the words of triumph- 
ant hope — words with which the mourner comforted 
himself — and so illustrate his faith in the certainty of a 
speedy and perpetual reunion beyond the grave. 

Taking the whole scope of the argument, to my own 
mind, it is no more an open question ; it is a verity, 
equally established by natural reason and revelation. 
The force of the argument is only reached by taking 
into view all its elements. There are individual proofs 
which alone are conclusive; but the combined evi- 
dence is overwhelming. The whole system of revela- 
tion carries the spirit of the doctrine, and the entire 



i 



2l6 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

literature of the Christian ages is saturated with it. It 
impregnates the whole atmosphere of religious faith of 
all phases and dispensations. It is f he first and last de- 
mand of the affections. Millions have been consoled 
with it in hours of the deepest sorrow and bereavement; 
and other millions, in the unwavering faith of it, have 
passed the Jordan with shoutings of holy triumph. Mul- 
titudes without number, and in circumstances to give 
great weight to their words, have, like Stephen, died 
declaring that they saw heaven open, and beheld well- 
known friends waiting to receive them. I can no more 
doubt Stephen's vision than I can disbelieve the Sermon 
on the Mount ; and I know not why many others of 
God's dear children may not, as they have confidently 
declared, have been favored in like manner. To my 
own faith, it is as unfalteringly certain that death will 
bring me to those I loved and bring them to me, as it is 
that it will bring me to immortality. If the one is true 
the other must be. I must cease to be a man, and be 
clothed with some other order of life, before I could 
even consent to enter a heaven which is barren of the 
spirits who have been so dear to me on earth. Ruth's 
devotion demanded a home and a grave with her whom 
she loved; but not less did she demand a heaven with 
her. "Thy God shall be my God," carries in it the 
avowal of a hope of eternal union. It is safe to say that 
no hope is so universal, so inextinguishable, so confident. 
Its disappointment would shroud eternity with darkness, 
and cover its ages with woe. There is no fact in human 
experience, no attribute of human nature, no quality of 
Godhead, no circumstance in the divine administration, 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 2\J 

which warrants doubt. Every principle must be revo- 
lutionized, the future must be a total contradiction of 
the past, old precedents and analogies must all fail, all 
things must radically change, death must obliterate all 
memories and affections and ideas and laws, or the 
awakening in the next world will be amid the welcomes 
and loves and raptures of those who left us with tearful 
farewells, and with dying promises that they would wait 
to welcome us when we should arrive. And so they do 
Not sorrowfully, not anxiously, but lovingly, they wait 
to bid us welcome. 

We claim in the course of these discussions that we 
have made to appear, upon good and sufficient evidence, 
the following points : — 

i. That the relationships which exist among men in 
this life are not continued in the next. 

2. That the peculiar loves which cement such rela- 
tionships are not permanent. 

3. That souls in the next life have a full and thorough 
recollection of this life. 

4. That souls in the next life dwell in one place, and 
have communion. 

5. That souls in the next life recognize those known 
in this life, with a perfect remembrance of their former 
acquaintance and friendships. 

These points, we think, are clearly established as en- 
titled to rational faith. They cannot be matters of ab- 
solute knowledge. The proof, in the nature of the case, 
can do no more than produce a contentful faith. This it 
unquestionably does. We may restfully believe. There 

is. absolutely nothing to allege against the doctrine; 

28 



* 



2l8 BFYOND THE GRAVE. 

nothing to authorize doubt. There are good reasons 
for it; every thing to warrant faith. It is rational to 
accept it. It is a case in which our affections will insist 
on a conclusion. In matters where knowledge is im- 
possible, we must be content with faith. It is wisdom 
to accept the consolations it offers, and to take them in 
their fullness ; not questioningly, not with the chill and 
palsy of distrust. Rational faith is next to absolute 
knowledge, only less assuring. It has foundation. It 
lays hold on truth. What it sees, though invisible to 
sense, is nevertheless real; as real as if we could touch 
and handle it. 

What, then, is this truth which we believe ? The 
dead live. In the years gone we had them with us ; 
they became very dear to us. They separated from the 
throng, and gave us their love. They grew into our be- 
ing, and were a part of us. One day they became weary 
and sick. We thought nothing of it at first; but morn- 
ing after morning came and they were more faint. The 
story of the dark days that followed is too sad. One 
dreary night, with radiant face, they kissed us and said 
good-bye. They were dead. Kind neighbors came 
and carried them out of our homes, and we followed 
with dumb awe, and saw them lay them down gently 
beneath the earth. We returned to the vacant house, 
which never could be home again. Our hearts were 
broken. The earth and sky have been so dark since 
that day. We have searched through the long nights 
and desolate days for them, but we cannot find them; 
they do not come back. We listen, but we get no tid- 
ings. Neither form nor voice comes to us. The dark, 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 2\g 

silent immensity has swallowed them up. Are they ex- 
tinct? No. They live; we cannot tell where, whether 
near us or remote ; we cannot tell in what form ; but 
they live. They are essentially the same beings they 
were when they went in and out among us. There has 
been no break in their life. It is as if they had crossed 
the sea. The old memories and old loves still are with 
them. New friends do not displace old ones. They 
are more beautiful than when we knew them, and purer 
and holier and happier. They are not sick or weary 
now. They have no sorrow. They are not alone. 
They have joined others. They think and talk of us. 
They make affectionate inquiries for our welfare. They 
wait for us. They are learning great lessons, which 
they mean to recite to us some day. They are not 
lonely; they are a glorious company. They have no 
envies or jealousies. They are ravished with the hap- 
piness of their new life. I do not know where it is, or 
how it is ; but I am certain it is so. They are kings 
and priests unto God. They wear crowns that flash in 
the everlasting light. They wear robes that are spot- 
lessly white. They wave victorious palms. They sing 
anthems of such exceeding sweetness as no earthly 
choirs ever approach. They stand before the throne. 
They fly on ministries of love. They muse on the tops 
of Mount Zion. They meditate on the banks of the 
river of life. They are rapturous with ecstasies of love. 
God wipes away all tears from their faces ; and there 
is no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, nor any 
more pain ; for the former things are passed away. The 
glorious angels are their teachers and companions. But 



220 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

why attempt to describe their ineffable state ? It hath 
not entered into the heart of man to conceive it. 

Soon we shall know it all. A day may unfold it. It 
will burst upon us like a revelation. We shall be speak- 
ing tenderly to the weeping ones about us, sorrowful 
ourselves to leave them, dreading to go; our faith strug- 
gling with terrors of doubt ; our frames shivering as our 
feet enter the cold river; darkness coming over us; the 
earth receding, disappearing alone out in the pitiless 
tempest ; our senses closed up, death will have com- 
pleted its work; eternity, heaven, opens on our eyes; 
our ears with sounds seraphic ring; lend, lend your 
wings, I mount, I fly. O death, where is thy sting? O 
grave, where is thy victory ? In a moment, in the 
twinkling of an eye, the whole scene will change. 
While the weeping living are yet caressing the still 
warm clay, the loving watchers will be lavishing their 
kisses of welcome. Not as strangers approaching some 
lonely shore shall we depart, but as loved and longed- 
for pilgrims, who return to open arms and welcoming 
hearts. I long to see Jesus, and angels who have 
watched over me, and befriended me, and all of the 
great and good whose virtues have enriched the ages. 
I know I shall hasten rapturously to worship my Lord ; 
may be he will take me in his arms to bear me over the 
river, and so to him I shall pour out my great and rev- 
erent love ; but I am certain I shall see crowding down 
nearest the shore some forms that will give me their first 
caresses ; forms that will be more to me than all the jew- 
eled host that circle the eternal throne. Heaven will 
recognize their right. Nor will it be for a day. 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 221 

The objections chiefly urged against the doctrine of 
recognition, as they have come under my notice, are : 
First, the change which passes upon the dead, destroy- 
ing all means of identification. This has been suffi- 
ciently noticed already. Second, that saints will be so 
absorbed in the contemplation of the divine glory, and 
in acts of worship, that they will have no time nor in- 
clination for society and communion among themselves. 
My answer to this is : It is a mere imagination, unwar- 
ranted in the Scriptures, therefore entitled to no weight; 
and in obvious violation of all the laws and purposes of 
our existence, therefore, to be rejected. The idea of 
heavenly life which it implies is absurd and irrational, 
a vain and idle dream. All analogies and all the laws 
of intelligent existence are against it. It is unsuited to 
the nature and cravings of the human soul. It is a 
sickly dream, which has in it nothing attractive, except 
to a class of mystics, who would spend eternity in rapt 
contemplation. The glory of God will doubtless be the 
all-engrossing subject ; but it will be contemplated and 
enjoyed in the light of what he has wrought for his re- 
deemed children, and as it is seen in the happiness and 
glory of his unsinning sons. The love that pours itself 
forth in adoration and worship, that makes him the cen- 
tral object, the fairest among ten thousand and alto- 
gether lovely, will kindle its fervors by seeing in him 
the source of all other holy loves. A chief part of his 
glory will be revealed in their fellowships. The love 
they bear each other will be his highest crown ; their mu- 
tual ministries in all holy pursuits his greatest delight. 
Their heaven will consist in their ever-growing knowl- 



222 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

edge of the greatness of their Author, as seen in his 
magnificent works, or of his plan as it shall continue to 
unfold before them, and in the high activities in which 
their love for each other and their adoring devotion to 
him shall find expression. They are, and must forever 
be, finite ; and while they worship the Infinite with rap- 
turous delight, they must derive most of their joy, and 
put forth most of their activity, in the fellowship of the 
finite. Their duties and pleasures will be, then as now, 
to beings and from beings whom they can serve, and by 
whom they can be served. The idea of heaven which 
resolves it into a mere ecstasy is degrading to men and 
discreditable to God, and in contradiction of all that we 
can see of his plan. Nothing is more obvious than that 
his plan contemplates the development of grand, robust 
spirits, who shall have their highest happiness in mag- 
nificent growth and achievement; spirits that shall be 
helpful and be helped ; spirits that shall minister and 
gratefully receive ministries; that shall grow together in 
mutual experiences ; that shall become cemented in 
the grandest friendships; that shall thrill with the ho- 
liest loves ; that progress together along the immortal 
ages and over infinite ranges of study, growing more 
and more dear as they advance in greatness and power : 
their knowledge of each other's history, the common 
ideas and common experiences, furnishing their noblest 
pleasures. To suppose otherwise is simply a silly 
dream, unfounded alike in reason and revelation, and 
without the force which calls for serious refutation. 

Third. It is objected, that if saints are recognized, and 
dearest friends should not be found among them, and 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 223 

«?o should be known, or even supposed, to be lost, it 
would spread a gloom over heaven. My answer is : 
The objection, viewed from our present stand-point, is 
confessedly grave and serious. Many answers have 
been made to it. I have never found one to satisfy my 
own mind. I leave the difficulty to be relieved when 
things, incomprehensible now, will be made plain. It 
embarrasses the subject, but is only of the nature of a 
difficulty, and not an overthrow. These two things 
remain certain : Saints will know and remember each 
other ; saints will be perfectly happy. How they will 
be so, if they should miss dear ones from their circle, I 
do not know. I am willing to leave it where it is, wait- 
ing for the end to reveal it. These are the only objec- 
tions I now think of. To my own mind, they bear noth- 
ing against our positions. 

From the general scope of the discussion, we are pre- 
pared to advance the following speculations as probably 
true in the main, if not in every particular : — 

1. There is probably much more resemblance between 
the present and future state than is generally supposed. 
The difference in some respects must necessarily be 
great ; in others more important, it may be, only as they 
differ between childhood and manhood, or the different 
stages and spheres of the present life. All that kind of 
desire and effort which springs from bodily wants will 
disappear, and this will be a wonderful change. Phys- 
ical appetite of every variety, which produces so much 
disquietude, and which, to so large an extent, deter- 
mines the structure of society here, and stimulates the 
pursuits of this life, will disappear. Temptation, moral 



224 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

struggle, doubt, sin, pain, sickness, death, and all the 
tendencies and methods which spring from them, will 
disappear. What pertains to family, Church, and civil 
governments : methods and machinery of education ; in- 
dustries, commerce, and all such activities as grow out 
of this earthly state, will pass away. They were of the 
waste-work, scaffolding in the building, and there will 
be no further use for them. But all that is of permanent 
worth will remain — personality, intellect, emotion, will, 
the real manhood, with all of endeavor, enjoyment, and 
fellowship that pertain to such a life in its unembar- 
rassed and endless development. What disappears is 
the tear, friction, alloy, rust ; what remains is the gold, 
the pure and permanent. 

2. The soul wakes up in the future world, or passes 
into it, as it passes from one city to another, with as 
little interruption of its faculties. In its transfer, how- 
ever, it loses the services of the physical senses. They 
have finished their function, and disappear. How this 
affects its relation to material affairs we do not know; 
possibly it interrupts commerce with this life entirely; 
and on many accounts it may be desirable that it should : 
but if there is the loss of the gross physical sense, we 
may infer there is the acquisition of a higher order of 
sensorium, by which it becomes related to the spiritual 
realm. 

3. The former friends it meets when it enters the new 
society, though wonderfully changed, it knows as readily, 
and embraces as cordially, as those we meet when, after 
a few days' journey, we return to our homes. 

4. It is not probable that the soul, on entering the 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 225 

future world, will recognize or know any others except 
those known before, until acquaintance by some means 
is formed. The imagination that disembodiment be- 
comes the means of knowing, without acquiring infor- 
mation by some process, is without warrant and irra- 
tional. In the next world we have reason to suppose 
that our faculties will be greatly strengthened and im- 
pediments will be less; but knowledge will not be by 
intuition. The soul will still be finite, and its joy in a 
great part will continue to arise from gradual unfolding 
of its powers, and enlargement of its knowledge. The 
zest of new ideas and fresh discoveries will in part make 
its heaven. Let us believe it will have its favorites. 

5. It is probable that as we, when we find ourselves 
in a strange city, incline to seek out some friend whom 
we may have known before ; so when we enter the heav- 
enly world we will naturally seek out and consort with 
those known and loved before. Is it a fancy ? Admit 
it. Is it not natural and probable ? It will be so, or 
not. Can we imagine the possibility of opposite ? 

6. It is probable that special friendship, commenced 
on earth, will be continued and carried on in heaven, 
and through eternity. As by a natural law we incline 
to the society of friends, not strangers, our intimate cir- 
cles there will be probably commenced here ; while by 
another law, that of affinity and sympathy from similar- 
ity of tastes, and such like, new intimacies may take the 
place of old ones. That souls do have their character- 
istic tastes now is certainly true; why not forever? 
Affinities result from correspondence of ideas and pur- 
suits. Why may they not find play in the eternal realm ? 

29 



226 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

The field of truth is infinite ; finite faculties will be for- 
ever growing. Who dares say that classified tastes and 
attainments may not be ground of special affiliations 
hereafter as now, and all heaven be gained ? 

7. While pure love and sincere affection will bind all 
heavenly beings as one family, no jars, jealousies, or 
discords ever disturbing the blessed union ; no affec- 
tions ever being injured or growing cold ; still there 
will be special intimacies, closer and more special 
friendships. Some will probably not know each other, 
having lived in different ages, and never spoken to- 
gether; others will be on speaking terms, exchanging 
occasional salutations ; while some again will be the 
close companions of centuries and ages. Who can 
number the millions that will live in heaven ? Who 
can measure the distance in degrees of power and rank 
between the foremost sons of light and the just admitted 
sons? Will they not have graded employments? Will 
they not come into special intimacies? 

Finally. The whole order and society of heaven will 
be adjusted for the social comfort and complete devel- 
opment of all the glorified spirits who shall compose it. 
Whatever separates will be taken down and abolished 
forever, and perfect love and friendship reign to all eter- 
nity. Blessed state ! Let us not doubt that in measure 
more than we can conceive, and an order of felicity great- 
er than we can imagine, all glorified souls will forever 
progress along the enlarging and ascending experiences 
of immortal life. All that was useless in acquirement 
in their inferior earthly life, or only useful for the earth, 
will perish with the earthly ; all needless and false learn- 



DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION. 227 

ings ; all imperfect and unworthy ideas and affections ; 
all that were arrangements for physical production and 
growth and discipline ; all impediments and hinder- 
ances : and those things only will be retained that en- 
noble and aggrandize our existence. Unalloyed life will 
remain — the life of perfect love ; the life of ceaseless 
acquisition of knowledge ; the life of joyous and happy 
freedom in noble activities ; the life of useful and help- 
ful ministries ; the life of fellowship with God — eternal 
life. As we look up into those glorious culminations, 
how grand life becomes ! To be forever with the Lord, 
and forever changing into his likeness, and, still more, 
forever deepening in the companionship of his thought 
and bliss, "from glory to glory," — could we desire 
more ? 

The discussion has its practical uses. It comes to us 
fraught with comforts concerning those who have gone 
out from us. Whatever our sorrow, would we, were it 
possible, call them back ? 

It furnishes us hope amid our bereavements, and 
against our fears. We shall not always sorrow. " Now 
for a season, if needs be," we must walk in the dark; 
must spend our nights in weeping ; but it is only for a 
little. Soon the everlasting day will welcome us, and 
our sorrowing will be turned into rejoicing. Then, 
tears no more forever. 

The discus ion also teaches us the greatness of the 
future, and urges its paramount claims. How can we 
be charmed any more with the earth? How can we 
resist the attraction of the blessed heaven ? This time 
— a day, a moment — what has it for us, that we should 



228 BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

cling to it, love it. The immortal home, the blessed 
ones awaiting us, the spirits of just men made perfect, 
the endless good in store, will they not draw us with 
irresistible attraction ? 

These views clothe our friendships with a new charm, 
and enrich them with an eternal value. Blessed loves ! 
how happy they have made us on the earth ; what will 
they be when they have deepened through ages, with no 
alloy of envy, or suspicion, or selfishness, or sorrow ! 

Who, as he stands here and looks into that blessed 
state, feels not arising within him the yearning to de- 
part? Multitudes stand waiting to receive us, expect- 
ing our arrival. With open arms they will embrace us, 
and with blessed welcomes attend us to our prepared 
homes. Let us not disappoint them ; but be up and 
pressing on, until the battle of life is fought and the vic- 
tory won, and we ascend to join them ! 



APPENDIX 



Note A. 

" The process of solution presents the simplest exem- 
plification of the power of chemical affinity. The only- 
condition requisite to effect solution is, that the solvent 
should possess a sufficient degree of affinity to the sub- 
stance to be dissolved, to overcome the attraction of 
cohesion among its particles. In some instances, the 
attractive power of the solvent liquid is so weak that it 
cannot act upon the body to be dissolved until the at- 
traction of cohesion, existing between the particles of 
the latter, is diminished, by reducing it to an impalpable 
powder. Even in this case, however, it is requisite that 
the chemical affinity subsisting between the solvent and 
the body to be dissolved be sufficiently powerful to over- 
come the cohesive attraction of the minute particles of 
the powder, or no solution would take place ; and this 
condition is indispensably necessary to solution, what- 
ever be the nature of the solvent or of the body acted 
upon. 

" The phenomena of solution afford some of the most 
obvious illustrations of complete changes produced in 
bodies without causing their destruction ; yet we are so 
much accustomed to see these changes, that though the 
substances dissolved can no longer be recognized, and 



230 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

are rendered perfectly invisible in their new condition, 
we never for a moment suppose that any particle of them 
is lost. 

" The solution of a lump of sugar in a cup of tea may 
be adduced as a familiar illustration. The hard crystal- 
lized sugar is dropped into the tea, and after a short in- 
terval it wholly disappears. Were a person to witness 
such a phenomenon for the first time, he would consider 
the sugar totally lost, and he might be disposed to at- 
tribute its disappearance to magic. We are, however, 
so well acquainted with the process, that we cease to 
regard the phenomenon as worthy of notice, and feel 
confident that the sugar has lost none of its properties 
by the chemical action which renders it imperceptible 
to the organs of sight and touch. If the lump of sugar 
be dissolved in a glass of water, we may perceive the 
solid crystallized mass gradually disappear until no vis- 
ible indication of its existence remains, and the water 
will then appear as limpid as at first. The presence of 
the sugar may, however, be detected, not only by the 
taste, but by the weight of the water, which will be 
found to have increased in exact proportion to the 
weight of the sugar dissolved. The saccharine matter 
may, indeed, be reproduced in a solid form by evapor- 
ating the solution to dryness, when the residue will con- 
sist of crystals of sugar, which will be found to weigh 
exactly the same as the original lump. The sugar in 
this case is not, indeed, reproduced in the identical form 
that it previously possessed, but it is in all respects, with 
the exception of the arrangement of its particles, the 
same as before solution ; and the resemblance might be 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 23 1 

made more close by conducting the process of evapora- 
tion in a vessel that would bring the crystals as they 
form into contact, by which means they would compose 
a solid lump. 

"The foregoing is an illustration of one of the most 
simple changes produced in the constitution of bodies 
by chemical action. In consequence of the frequent 
recurrence of the process it fails to make any impres- 
sion on the mind, and we may be disposed to wonder 
that it should excite observation. Yet the change the 
sugar undergoes is so great, and it is in appearance so 
completely destroyed, that if we had no means of de- 
tecting its presence in the water we might imagine that 
solution was identical with annihilation. 

" We will adduce another and less familiar instance of 
the total disappearance of a solid body by solution. If 
a piece of silver be immersed in diluted nitric acid, the 
affinity of the acid to the metal will occasion them to 
unite ; a brisk action will ensue, and in a short time the 
silver will be entirely dissolved. The liquid will remain 
as limpid as before, and will present no difference in its 
appearance to indicate a change. What, then, has be- 
come of the solid piece of silver that was placed in the 
liquid ? Its hardness, its luster, its tenacity, its great 
specific gravity, all the characteristics that distinguished 
it as a metal, are gone; its very form has vanished, and 
the hard, splendid, ponderous, and opaque metal that, 
but a few minutes since was immersed in the mixture, 
is apparently annihilated. Must we conclude that the 
metal is destroyed, because its presence is inappreciable 
by our senses ? We might, perhaps, be disposed to ar- 



232 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

rive at such a conclusion if we were unacquainted with 
the means of restoring the silver to its metallic state, or 
were ignorant of any test that might indicate its pres- 
ence in the fluid, or were unable from analogous phe- 
nomena to infer that its elementary particles exist un- 
changed, and have merely undergone a different state of 
combination. Chemical science, however, not only af- 
fords us innumerable analogical proofs that the metal is 
not destroyed, but enables us to reproduce it from the 
solution, undiminished in weight, and possessing the 
luster and other properties by which it was previously 
distinguished, and thus to place the question of its being 
suspended in the liquid beyond the possibility of a doubt. 
The reproduction of the silver may be effected by intro- 
ducing some pieces of copper into the solution, to which 
metal the acid has a stronger affinity than to the silver, 
and the latter will consequently be disengaged and fall 
to the bottom in small, brilliant, metallic crystals. The 
quantity thus deposited will be found to correspond ex- 
actly with the weight of the metal dissolved ; and, if the 
minute particles be melted and cast into the same shape 
that the piece of silver presented before solution, it will 
be reproduced, not only the same in substance, and en- 
dued with the same properties it possessed before its 
disappearance in the acid, but even in its pristine 
form. 

" It would be of little avail to multiply illustrations of 
the phenomena of solution for the purpose of showing 
that this process does not destroy the particles of mat- 
ter. The two instances already adduced will sufficiently 
answer our purpose, though they constitute two only out 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 233 

of the innumerable examples that might be produced in 
proof of the same indisputable fact. 

"Before we dismiss this branch of our subject, how- 
ever, it may be as well to direct attention to the fact 
that though solution is one of the simplest processes of 
nature, the limited faculties of man will not permit him 
to comprehend the mode in which it operates. We are 
enabled to discover the proximate cause of the process, 
and to ascertain that the action of the solvent upon the 
body to be dissolved is produced by the chemical at- 
tractions subsisting between their elementary atoms ; 
but of the nature of that attraction, and of the manner 
in which it acts, we are profoundly ignorant. In the 
more intricate phenomena investigated by the chemist, 
even the proximate causes of their action can only be 
conjectured ; still less can he discover the ultimate 
modes of operation by which their processes are con- 
ducted. There is not one phenomenon of nature that 
the mind of man can fully comprehend; and, after pur- 
suing the inquiry as far as his mental capacity will ad- 
mit, he is still obliged to confess that there is an oper- 
ating power beyond the reach of his comprehension. 
It is of importance in our researches that we should 
bear in mind the utter incapacity of man to penetrate 
the hidden mysteries of nature, lest we be induced to 
mistake the low level of human knowledge for the sum- 
mit of omniscience, and should run into the common 
error of concluding that whatever is incomprehensible to 
our limited faculties must be impossible." 

Blakie, from whom this extract is taken, furnishes 

equally striking examples, under evaporation, rarefac- 
30 



234 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

tion, natural decomposition, and combustion. To quote 
them would make this note too long, and yet the matter is 
so important to the argument that I will extend the quo- 
tation so as to embrace his general summation : — 

" When we infer that the results of the solution of one 
lump of sugar are the same as those attending all other 
solutions of sugar in the same solvent, under similar 
circumstances, we proceed upon the clearest evidence 
it is possible to obtain — that of experience. If we were 
not acquainted with the results attending the solution of 
any other substance than sugar, we might, perhaps, infer 
— from analogy — as no particle of sugar when dissolved 
is lost by the process, that in all solutions the substance 
dissolved is not destroyed, but is only suspended in the 
solvent. The analogy in this case, however, if unsup- 
ported, could not be alone adduced as evidence of this 
general effect of solution. If, however, we found, after 
analyzing the products of three or four other solutions, 
that the same results occurred, the inference drawn from 
the analogy would assume a character of great proba- 
bility. When, on further investigation, we found that 
during every solution winch we are enabled to analyze 
the particles of matter in the body dissolved have merely 
entered into different combinations, and are not de- 
stroyed, or even changed in their properties, the general 
conclusion deduced from these facts, namely, that mat- 
ter is never destroyed or altered by any kind of solution, 
acquires a degree of certainty little short of that drawn 
from direct experience. 

" Having thus acquired a satisfactory knowledge of the 
fact that matter is not destroyed by solution, we might 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 2$$ 

proceed to infer that, as in this apparently destructive 
chemical action the elements of matter only undergo a 
new combination, therefore in all other chemical actions 
the elementary particles of matter are merely combined 
in different forms, and are not destroyed. This analog- 
ical inference might be drawn from the process of solu- 
tion alone, but it would be too general a deduction from 
one species of chemical action to be confidently relied 
on. When, however, we perceive, on examining the re- 
sults of other chemical processes, that even the most 
apparently destructive of them are really inoperative to 
effect the least diminution in the particles of matter, 
we should be warranted, by this accumulated experience 
bearing upon the point, in concluding that such an in- 
ference is correct. When, for instance, it is ascertained 
that in every known form of solution, of evaporation, of 
rarefaction, of decomposition, and even of combustion, 
the elements of matter are not changed or diminished: 
that no particle of the matter acted on suffers annihila- 
tion, and that by no known process whatever can matter 
be destroyed, this accumulated evidence, derived from 
experience, gives so strong a corroboration to the anal- 
ogy, that the proof of the indestructibility of all matter 
becomes almost as well established as any truth can be, 
of which we have not absolute demonstration. 

" The same important truth may be arrived at in an- 
other manner. It is known that all chemical actions 
we are acquainted with are merely the results of differ- 
ent states of chemical affinity, and that the decomposi- 
tion and separation of the elements of bodies are effected 
only by the formation of new combinations. The proc- 



236 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

esses of chemistry, therefore, which we are in the habit 
of considering as agents in the destruction of bodies, 
are but the passive effects of the operation of chemical 
attraction, which has caused the particles of matter to 
combine either with different substances or with differ- 
ent proportions of the same. 

"Taking this view of the subject, then, it will be seen 
that the several processes selected for illustration in the 
preceding chapters, as exhibiting the most striking in- 
stances of the apparent destruction of matter, are only- 
subsequent effects induced by the operation of chemical 
attraction. The phenomena of solution are the results 
of the affinity subsisting between the liquid and the sub- 
stance dissolved; evaporation is the effect of similar at- 
tractions between the liquid evaporated and the atmos- 
phere; rarefaction, of that subsisting between the rarefied 
body and heat ; decomposition is the effect of various 
chemical affinities which separate the parts of bodies 
from their original compounds to form others of a dif- 
ferent kind ; and even combustion has been shown, in 
the preceding chapters, to be only the result of similar 
affinities exerted energetically between the elements of 
the combustible bodies and the supporters of combus- 
tion. If, then, experience teaches that the operations 
usually considered the most destructive do not, in fact, 
destroy one particle of matter — and if we learn, also, that 
those operations themselves are nothing more than the 
effects of new combinations, and are entirely dependent 
upon the operation of these combinations — we receive 
additional evidence of the most conclusive nature to 
confirm the former deductions from analogy. We thus 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 237 

perceive that it would be impossible for those processes 
which appear to change the forms of bodies to destroy 
the ultimate particles of matter, because the processes 
themselves are only effects consequent on the changes 
that have already taken place, and merely indicate that 
the new combinations have been completed. 

"We are not acquainted with any physical process or 
operation of nature that can annihilate matter. Expe- 
rience teaches us that matter is imperishable, and we 
cannot form the least conception of the possibility of its 
annihilation. We are bound, then, to believe, from an 
accumulation of evidence so strong as to be completely 
irresistible, that the elements of matter which have once 
been created can only be annihilated by the direct in- 
terposition of the Omnipotent Power that brought them 
into being. Having thus arrived, by different modes of 
reasoning, at the important truth that all matter is inde- 
structible excepting by the direct interposition of the 
Power that created it, the next consideration is the ap- 
plication of this truth, to prove the imperishable nature 
of the sentient principle in man. 

" In this branch of our inquiry we cannot, owing to the 
limited extent of our faculties, and our complete igno- 
rance of the condition of the mind after death, be aided 
by direct experience. Our faculties are, indeed, com- 
pletely baffled when we attempt to investigate the sub- 
ject ; and, as it seems impossible for us to attain a knowl- 
edge of the nature and properties of our own mind, even 
when we are acting under its impulse, we can have but 
little expectation of ascertaining the nature of the minds 
of others; and as the sentient principle is so extremely 



238 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

subtile as to evade all attempts to investigate its nature 
when united with the corporeal substance which it ani- 
mates and renders capable of performing the functions 
of vitality, we can scarcely hope to be able to penetrate 
the mystery of its being when it is separated from the 
body, and no perceptible trace of its existence remains. 
Being deprived, then, by our incapacity to comprehend 
so subtile an essence, from gaining any positive evidence 
relative to the nature of the human mind, or from being 
able to assist our inquiries respecting its existence in a 
separate state from the body by the results of experi- 
ence, we are obliged to have recourse to the next best 
evidence we can obtain, which is that of analogy. If, 
however, the analogical evidence be strengthened by a 
number of facts derived from experience, tending, by 
their separate corroborative testimonies to confirm the 
belief of a future existence of the sentient being, the 
effect of this combined evidence bearing upon the point 
will be nearly as conclusive as that of direct proof. It 
will bear, in short, the same relation in the investigation 
of truth that circumstantial evidence bears to that of 
positive testimony; the latter is more direct, but cir- 
cumstantial evidence may not be less satisfactory. 

"In the progress of our inquiries we trust we shall be 
able to present a mass of evidence of this description, 
tending to support in the strongest manner the position 
which it is our object to establish. One important link 
in this chain of evidence is the truth arrived at in the 
foregoing investigations. Indeed, we might, as has been 
already observed, infer with the greatest probability of 
correctness from that truth alone, that the soul is inde- 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 239 

structible. For if matter, which is continually under- 
going apparent and most striking changes, be imperish- 
able, we cannot reasonably suppose that the mind, which 
controls all the actions of matter with which it is incor- 
porated, is of a more perishable nature than the grosser 
particles that are subservient to its will. The numerous 
instances, also, with which we are acquainted, of the 
continued existence of matter in a more subtile form, 
and therefore inappreciable by our senses, after it has 
apparently been annihilated, afford strong emblematical 
analogy to the existence of the soul after its separation 
from the body. 

" We can scarcely conceive a greater change than that 
which takes place on the decomposition of water, and 
the conversion of its tasteless and salubrious liquid par- 
ticles into an inflammable, invisible, and noxious gas, 
and into a solid body combined with iron. No anni- 
hilation could appear to be more complete than that of 
the water in this process to those who are ignorant of 
the nature of the phenomenon ; and yet, when that is 
known, it affords one of the strongest proofs of the inde- 
structibility of matter. The changes that occur on death 
are not greater, nor do they present a more decided ap- 
pearance of annihilation, than does the decomposition of 
water. The decomposition of animal bodies, indeed, ex- 
hibits not only the destruction of the system of organ- 
ization, but of the matter organized; nevertheless not 
one particle is lost throughout the complicated process; 
and if we were capable of investigating the mental proc- 
esses consequent on the dissolution of the body, we 
can scarcely doubt that the sentient principle would be 



240 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

found to be as imperishable and unchangeable as the 
matter with which it was united. 

" Our dense faculties will not enable us to comprehend 
the nature of immaterial being; and even tho'e material 
substances that assume a subtile form surpass the bounds 
of our comprehension. The power of gravitation, for 
instance, is supposed to be caused by a material agent, 
but of its nature or modes of operation we are totally- 
ignorant. We know, however, that it exists, and that it 
has continued since the creation of the world to exert 
the same influence over grosser matter in all its combi- 
nations, decays, and apparent dissolutions. We have a 
firm conviction that the power of gravity is of equal, if 
not of superior, duration to the matter which it con- 
trols ; and we know that its force is not diminished by 
the complete decomposition of the substances on which 
it operates. The same observations would apply to heat, 
light, electricity, magnetism, and chemical attraction, of 
the nature of which we know nothing, though of their 
existence we have continued proof. When we combine 
these facts relative to the indestructibility of matter, 
and when we consider our incompetency to investigate 
immaterial essences, we shall have strong grounds for 
believing that mind is as imperishable as material sub- 
stance, and we shall see the futility of those objections 
raised to the separate existence of the soul, merely on 
the ground of such a state of separation being incom- 
prehensible. When, for instance, we perceive that mat- 
ter cannot be destroyed — that the more subtile proper- 
ties of matter exercise their power over the grosser 
particles, undisturbed by the changes and separations 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 2\\ 

among the particles themselves — that these changes and 
separations seem fully as great, and are as incompre- 
hensible to those not initiated into the mysteries of 
science, as the supposed separate existence of the soul 
from the body must, from the incapacity of the human 
intellect, be to the wisest of mankind — when we perceive 
that this incapacity alone prevents our arriving at the 
same truth respecting the sentient principle which we 
have attained respecting the indestructibility of material 
substances — we are led, by a powerful combination of 
the clearest analogies, to the conclusion that the sen- 
tient principle is as imperishable as the apparently frail 
substance in which it is enveloped; and this deduction 
from analogical evidence derives strong confirmation 
from the fact that in all cases wherein we are enabled 
to pursue the inquiry to a satisfactory termination, the 
results are the same as those we infer to be the case 
with the mind, which we cannot analyze. If, therefore, 
we possessed no other natural evidence in support of a 
belief in a future life, the analogical argument founded 
upon the indestructibility of matter has been forcibly 
expressed by an able writer in the following words : — 

"'We have the evidence of experience that nothing 
is ever suffered to perish but particular systems, which 
perish only as systems, by a decomposition of their parts. 
A being which, like the soul, has no par% can suffer no 
decomposition, and, therefore, if it perish, it must perish 
by annihilation. But of annihilation there has not hith- 
erto been a single instance, nor can we look for a single 
instance without supposing the volitions of God to par- 
take of that unsteadiness which is characteristic of man 



/ 

242 BEY OX D THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

Corporeal systems, when they have served their purpose, 
are, indeed, resolved into their component parts; but 
the matter of which they are composed, so far from 
being lost, becomes the matter of other systems in end- 
less succession. Analogy, therefore, leads us to con- 
clude that when the human body is dissolved the im- 
material principle by which it was animated continues 
to think and act, either in a state of separation from all 
body, or in some material vehicle to which it is ulti- 
mately united, and which goes off with it at death, or 
else that it is preserved by the Father of spirits for the 
purpose of animating a body in some future state. When 
we consider the different states through which that living 
and thinking individual which each man calls himself 
goes, from the moment it first animates an embryo in 
the womb to the dissolution of the man of fourscore — 
and when we reflect likewise on the wisdom and immu- 
tability of God, together with the various dissolutions of 
corporeal systems, in which we know that a single atom 
of matter has never been lost — the presumption is cer- 
tainly strong that the soul shall subsist after the disso- 
lution of the body. But when we take into considera- 
tion the moral attributes of God, his justice and goodness, 
together with the unequal distribution of happiness and 
misery in the present world, this presumption from anal- 
ogy amounts to a complete moral proof that :here will be 
a future state of rewards and punishments.' 

" The natural evidence of a future life does not, how- 
ever, rest upon the indestructibility of matter alone. 
That forms only one link, though an important one, in 
the chain." 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 243 

Note B. 

Man was made for permanence of life ; but in this state- 
ment we do not mean either that his animal life, as such, 
in its present form, was to be permanent, or that he was to 
remain forever in a body on the earth. We do not believe 
either of these ideas true. We are free to confess that 
we can see nothing in the nature of man to exempt him 
from the common law of death, so far forth as he is ani- 
mal. Further, we are constrained to believe, that, left 
to the mere working of natural law, he would have died. 
He most certainly included in his created constitution 
tendencies to death, which, imhindered, would have cul- 
minated in that result. The same causes that work 
dissolution in other creatures were active in his nature. 
The same hostile forces which are universally destruc- 
tive of other lives were militant against his life, and 
guaranteed its ultimate overthrow, unless in some way 
prevented. The physiology of his life, as in every other 
case, exhibits a constant lapse into death, an uninter- 
mittent tendency to the goal of extinction. As to his 
organic life he was naturally mortal ; and yet we accept 
the idea that, had he not sinned, he would not have 
died ; the naturally mortal, as to his organic life, would 
have been, by special supernatural interference, made 
immortal. The disorganizing tendencies would not have 
been permitted to reach the catastrophe of life's ovei- 
throw and organic dissolution. 

The immunity was not of nature, but of grace. This 
we understand to be the revealed doctrine, in which 
exemption is set forth as the reward of obedience. 



244 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

"The tree of life " was a sacramental seal to the cove- 
nant of life in which he stood, a perpetual and visible 
guarantee of life on definitive conditions. Sin was the 
proclaimed ground of annulling the covenant, which, on 
its occurrence, would simply remove from the guilty cul- 
prit the covenanted supernatural protection, and leave 
him to lapse into death : the destructive agencies cor- 
porate in his nature, no longer restrained, would, in that 
event, be left to prey upon and vanquish his forfeited 
life. If this view be correct, by sin man becomes sub- 
ject to the common fate of all flesh, from which, by 
obedience, he would have been graciously exempted. 
No one can doubt that the Infinite, in the inexhaustible 
fecundity of his resources, might have, in the case of 
man, provided an exception against a general rule. 
There is abundant reason to suppose that he would and 
did. The exceptional nature of man taken into the ac- 
count, the scriptural theory is neither impossible nor 
improbable. It does not preclude the fact of the nat- 
ural tendencies to death, which cannot be questioned, 
and is not, therefore, in conflict with manifest fact. It 
introduces an exceptional counterworking force, which, 
for a sufficient reason, on a certain contingency, was to 
avert the natural catastrophe. Those who resolutely 
discard all lights except such as are furnished by mere 
nature may discard the theory. We accept it on the 
ground that we have another set of facts, not in contra- 
diction of those furnished by nature, but additional to 
them — a communicated revelation from the Creator 
himself, in which he declared his purpose that the ca- 
tastrophe foreshadowed by nature should, in this case, 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 245 

for reasons, be averted. Our disagreement is not as to 
the facts of observation, but as to the supplemental facts. 
So far as observation goes we agree ; revelation denies, 
contradicts, nothing, but only adds. There is no con- 
flict; but one brings into the field an object-glass which 
the other discards. 

But assuming the revealed theory to be true, that is, 
"that had not man sinned he would not have died," 
some interesting questions remain, as to what his des- 
tiny in that case would have been. The discussion may 
remove some widespread theological crudities, and at 
the same time suggest some useful hints on the subject 
of the immortal life. 

Does the theory we have stated imply that the undy- 
ing because unsinning man would have forever remained 
an inhabitant of the earth? By no means. Does it 
imply that he would have remained forever in the body 
in which he was created and as created ? By no means. 
Many who hold the theory undoubtedly would answer 
both questions affirmatively. They see in the deathless 
Adam and his deathless race nothing other than the 
earthly made permanent and immortal. The inference 
is both illogical and unscriptural, and, for many positive 
reasons, must be rejected. 

In the absence of any express statement of revelation 
on the subject, it is hardly surprising that the unpre- 
meditated inference has been almost universally in the 
affirmative. A more careful and extended study is cer- 
tain to lead to another view. The absence of express 
dogmatic statement does not imply the absence of def- 
inite teaching. Many times it occurs that most impor- 



246 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

tant doctrines are taught by implication, and not less 
definitely than if expressly enunciated. This is a con- 
spicuous case of the kind. The whole burden and 
drift of revelation is obvious and explicit, though not 
categorical. 

But had revelation been totally silent on t .4 subject, 
obstinate facts would necessitate the belief that immor- 
tality in bodies such as ours, and under laws such as those 
which are inherent in our nature, is an impossible thing. 
The human law of fecundation, as we have seen, would 
in a comparatively brief time have overstocked the 
world with population, to what an extent you have 
only to refresh your minds by referring to page 265 to 
discover. 

It is so obvious that the body as now organized was 
not made for permanence, that, if the theory that death 
is the result of sin involves the counter idea, that ab- 
sence of sin would have insured absence of death, and 
consequent permanence of the bodily organization, the 
theory would have to be abandoned. We can scarcely 
conceive of an authority that could have rendered it 
credible. But non-death is not the necessary equiva- 
lent of permanence of the present organism. It might 
be transformed; or from it might be evolved a higher 
and more perfect organization, without the process of 
corruption, or the humiliation and agonies of death. 
How the change might have been effected is to us un- 
known ; but not more so than the fact of life. That it 
would have been effected, though not discovera- 
ble by unaided reason, is certainly not unreasonable, 
while it is certainly scriptural. Mere sense points to 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX, 247 

inevitable death ; revelation indicates transformations. 
But reason itself affirms that if immortality is the dower 
of man, it must be in an organism and under conditions 
totally different from those now existing. 

Man's ultimate destiny, as purposed by the Creator 
from the first, must be interpreted, if we are left to mere 
reason, from his higher nature — that which makes him 
man — not from his lower, that which he has in common 
with other creatures. Guided by this principle, the re- 
sult of examination will be the discovery of a probable 
deliverance from the present bodily organization at some 
time and in some way. His real self is spirit, not body. 
Every thing else about him has value and meaning, and 
exists, and may be expected to remain, only as it is nec- 
essary, and while it is necessary, to the full development 
and highest good of this noblest self. If at any time 
the man should reach a stage of growth where his earlier 
bodily conditions and surroundings would become a 
clog to him, impede his further perfection, hinder, not 
help it, or merely cease to answer any important end, 
we might, according to all analogies, expect them to 
disappear. The scaffolding which is necessary to the 
building while it is in process of erection becomes a 
deformity and embarrassing surplusage after it is com- 
pleted. The egg which nourishes and protects the 
young bird while it is preparing for its life of freedom 
in the outer air, would smother and destroy it were it 
continued but a little too long. The expanding germ 
could not long live if repressed in its development. In 
the case of man there is abundant evidence that he does 
in an incredibly brief period grow beyond his present 



248 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

appointments ; and still more abundant evidence that 
in their nature they prevent his reaching the ultimate 
goal of his life. 

The organism, the animal, in which the man, the spirit 
— the true and only self — comes swathed, answers the 
double purpose already indicated for a time, but it soon 
becomes an incumbrance ; from being a useful servant it 
becomes a burdensome charge. It helps the spirit to its 
first lessons, and leads it out into its first activities; but 
it embarrasses its advanced stages of growth, and ob- 
structs its higher exercises. It proves not only an in- 
sufficient instrument, out of measure for our needs, but 
it has needs which are wearisome and expensive; wants 
growing out of its infirmities and weaknesses, needs of 
care and repairs, which are throughout life, and espe- 
cially in advanced age, a constant and distressing strain 
on powers and affections which have higher uses, and 
which demand freedom and enlargement into other 
realms and modes of employment. During early stages, 
when beginning to unfold, man may find useful and 
even happy employment in working with his hands for 
food; in taxing his brain to invent curious fabrics for 
clothing and adornment; in architecture, in construct- 
ing machinery, in executing coarse arts, in various han- 
dicrafts, and in all that multifarious labor which makes 
up the substance of most lives ; but to a soul coming to 
its nobler and deeper wants and possibilities and unap- 
peasable cravings — that superior consciousness which 
sooner or later visits all — such things must cloy. There 
is nothing that pertains to a body, either its necessities 
or pleasures, that would be agreeable to carry up through 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 249 

eternity ; as a stomach forever craving, limbs forever 
wearying, tissues forever wasting, a frame forever crying 
for protection against pain and hurt and hunger. The 
care which nature demands for its comfort and well- 
being, and even its most exquisite sensations, ultimately 
weary, then disgust, while its limitations always chafe 
and cripple us. The soul, or self, at first at home in its 
life in nature, (1 Cor. xv, first that which is natural, after 
that, that which is spiritual,) ere long discovers that its 
real home is above the stars, and in utterly other condi- 
tions. Either its capabilities and resulting longings 
must be eradicated, or it must be the permanent victim 
of unappeasable aspirations which can never be gratified, 
or it must in some way attain deliverance from physical 
thralldom. Nor is this fact of growing disharmony with 
its earthly conditions attributable to the accident of 
its sin, or any abnormal effects arising therefrom. Had 
man remained forever innocent — or, more yet, had he 
possessed unblemished holiness — still the earth could 
not long have been an adequate and felicitous home. 
Even the sinless spirit must have pined ere long for a 
bliss more celestial, for activities more ennobling, than 
any possible in a realm such as this in which we are born. 
For a limited time his unfolding energies might have been 
contentful, even exuberant; but its highest bliss never 
could have been attained ; the enshrined life never could 
have become the evolved life. The body :s ioo circum- 
scribed an instrument — too much fettered by natural law 
— too narrow in its possible uses — to furnish for the out- 
come of such a life as is contained in its possibilities; it 

anchors the soul in the earth, in sense and externality, 
32 



250 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

while it longs to explore the stars, or, going beyond 
them, to enter into other fellowships ; to see the invisible, 
to know the unknown. The divine soul, coming to its 
celestial longings, and consciousness of unseen and su- 
permundane glories, could not remain satisfied with the 
endless round of eating, sleeping, drudging, and the 
mere sensualities that make up the round of earthly ex- 
istence. Sin is not the only thing that makes the earth 
unsuited for a permanent home. It is no disparagement 
to nature when we say, it is not adequate to the wants 
of an immortal being. We do not disparage the body. 
It is God's most noble earthly work, but it belongs to 
an inferior system. For a temporary arrangement noth- 
ing could be more beautiful or helpful than the mani- 
fold arrangements about us. Nothing is in vain. All 
things minister. Life is carried on and up to ecstasy, 
but it is prophetic, and must go forward. To continue 
in its present plane empties it of good, constituted as we 
are. No greater calamity could befall us than to live 
forever as here and now, with the inevitable tendencies 
in our nature ; in fact, the idea would be revolting, if 
it were not impossible. If the scheme did not contain 
elements preventive of earthly immortality, the mani- 
fold evils of such an arrangement would beget a deep- 
er discontent than death itself, even as death is more 
endurable than utter longing or sullen despair. Death- 
less himself, man would find himself in a world of 
death — death every-where ravening his beautiful home, 
despoiling all. 

But, in fact, an immortal race of beings such as man 
— with physical organization, wants, appetites, passions, 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 25 1 

and longings such as his — with procreative laws such 
as those by which the race is multiplied and propagat- 
ed — is a simple impossibility. Without a radical change 
in the whole order of nature it would work its own 
extinction. 

The whole drift of the evidence deducible from the 
system as we find it proves that the animal economy is 
a temporary arrangement, designed to answer a useful 
purpose during an inferior stage of the ever-developing 
and progressive life of an immortal race, and then to be 
abolished, and to be followed by existence of a different 
kind under wholly different conditions. Death entered 
into the very essence of the economy. The babe in the 
womb, the bird in the shell, the germ in the seed, are 
not more obvious cases of incipient and preliminary 
stages of life, having reference to a more advanced 
stage, than is the present condition of man. Indeed, 
all natural processes, in which progress is the law, is 
simply an exemplification of the same idea. Until the 
ultimate idea is reached, all previous stages are tran- 
sient. The ultimate for man, as the highest and grand- 
est thing possible to his nature — the culmination and 
completeness of his being — is spiritual perfection. Every 
thing preliminary thereto is temporary — mere scaffold- 
ing. Universal creation is to be interpreted by its spir- 
itual side. That only is entitled to be carried up which 
will serve a spiritual end, or be permanently condi- 
tioned to spiritual perfection. For example : inanimate 
and inorganic matter exists in vast masses, not for it- 
self or any good that is in it. Taken alone, there could 
be no reason assigned for its existence at all, much less 



252 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

for its permanence. The same is true of the inferior 
organic and living orders. They furnish no adequate 
end for such a lavish expenditure of power. It is only 
as they serve higher ends that they commend them- 
selves. The higher thought in each case is plainly dis- 
cernible, and in no case is a mere conjecture. Crude 
earths exist for vegetation, to which all the parts of the 
solar economy also minister. In turn, the vegetable 
conditions and ministers to the animal, and in this finds 
its end. What is below, in every case, finds its explana- 
tion and the reason of it in what is built upon it. This 
is but the announcement of one of the simplest laws of 
thought. There can be no true philosophy of any thing 
which does not include its end, since philosophy is 
nothing else but the apprehension of ends, and the rela- 
tion and adaptation of means thereto. The study of 
the scheme of nature discovers the fact that man is its 
topmost point or climax. All below points to him, and 
is in order to him. This is so if we contemplate him 
simply as an organism. All nature labors to build the 
tissues of his body — sun, moon, stars, earth, and all 
lower forms of life are harnessed to this service. 

But the organism is not a finality, but is means to a 
higher end ; is served by all, that it may serve in the 
highest ministry of all; that it may shrine a spirit and 
initiate an immortal life. This, therefore, interprets all. 
First, the natural; after, that which is spiritual; then 
that which is celestial — all below pointing upward. The 
question now under consideration is, What relation do 
these preliminary economies sustain to this ultimate ? 
Are they permanently necessary to it, or may the ulti- 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 2$$ 

mate, at first conditioned by them, rise to independence 
of them, and advance along its immortal progress with- 
out them ? When the dome is set may the scaffolding 
be laid away? That at first bodies are indispensable 
there can be no reasonable doubt. Their deft and curious 
contrivances are for man's use and development. For 
his composite wants the whole economy of nature is set, 
but more especially for the education, the leading forth, 
of his spiritual powers ; but for this the scheme would 
not exist ; and when it is accomplished, special parts of 
the economy may be dispensed with, and new and 
higher parts be introduced. 

What are the uses which bodies serve to the higher 
spiritual economy ? First, they serve as material shrines 
in which to posit souls. There may be unbodied spirits 
for aught we know — spirits that never were shrined in 
flesh or corporeity. Not such is the human spirit. It is 
located in flesh — has an earthly house. By means of its 
body it comes into relations with the material universe, 
and, as we shall soon perceive, comes to be conscious of 
itself, and attains the development of its wondrous powers. 
If, afterward, it suffers much from the body, it owes much 
to the body. If it is true that the perfection of the spirit 
is the ultimate end of the whole economy of nature, it 
is also true that it is made dependent on the economy. 
The soul enters existence as a germ. It is not born 
in the maturity of its powers. Almost infinite possi- 
bilities are stored in it, but they will only be educed by 
tedious and determined processes. It is of the noblest 
essence, and possesses the divinest faculties ; is a child 
of God, bearing his image and likeness, and born to the 



254 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

heritage of truth and love ; but it is an infant, and must 
grow into its patrimony. Life on earth is the primary 
school, where it learns its first lessons in truth, and the 
home circle, where it drinks its first inspirations of love ; 
and the body mediates its instructions and ins^ intions. 
When created and posited in the body, it neithei knows 
nor loves; is not even conscious of itself; and from all 
that appears, never could come even to self-conscious- 
ness or knowledge of any externality without its offices. 
It is roused by externality. The impact of material 
surroundings on the delicate nervous organization some- 
how impresses it. We call the effect sensation. Percep- 
tion follows — the glories of the external universe burst 
upon it— it knows and feels. It could never do either 
but for the mediatorial sensorium and the external 
realm to which it relates it. Thus the instrument and 
the external universe are seen to be indispensable to the 
soul, and to be created for it— the bridges over which it 
passes to its conscious experiences— the mediators of its 
lif e — the fulcra from which it rises into all the kinds and 
sublimities of activity which shall grow and glorify its 
immortal flight. So important is the instrument, so 
closely related to the soul's life, that it ceases to be a 
wonder that in our ignorance we should be betrayed, as 
is sometimes the case, into the error of confounding it 
with the soul itself. Still less is it to be wondered at, 
that we should fall into the error of supposing that that 
which is so serviceable at first must be forever in- 
dispensable, and so are led to imagine that the de- 
struction of the instrument by death must be irreparable 
calamity to the soul also, failing to see that what is 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 2$$ 

helpful in one stage of existence may be hinderance in 
another. 

It is to be noted, that the experience which the body 
mediates to the soul is a low and inferior type, grounded 
in sensation, and resulting in acquaintance with and en- 
joyment of, the material world — a mere life in nature. 
During a period the soul is shut in to externality. It 
cognizes only what is sensible. Its affections only lay hold 
of the palpable and visible. It flits about from object 
to object, gathering a kind of enjoyment, as bees roam 
from flower to flower. The eye, the ear, the touch flood 
it with pleasing sensations. The unison of forms and 
colors, and fragrance and flower, and sound and touch, 
ravishes it. Emotions of pleasure and delight thrill it. 
The nerve of sensation vibrates to the deeper spiritual 
nerve — the sense of the beautiful, the true, the good. 
Love springs, and new fountains of ecstasy are opened ; 
but it is all in the realm of the sensible. Perceptions, 
emotions, reflections, volitions — the entire circle of 
awakened activity — has reference to matters of sense — 
what lies about the soul, and reaches it through the or- 
ganism — a life in which the organism and spirit seem to 
blend. But in process of time there comes the conscious- 
ness of higher powers ; consciousness of an ethereal 
soul, which has supersensible relations ; of wants higher 
than animal cravings ; of a possible bliss nobler than 
sensual delights ; of hungerings and thirstings which no 
material good can satisfy. That which pleased pleases 
no more. To every soul, sooner or later, this new and 
expanded life must come. It will rise out of the sen- 
sible ; new aspirations, new longings, yearnings after the 



256 BEYOND THE GRAVE- APPENDIX. 

unseen, will come to it; discoveries of previously un- 
known realities which will sink all its earlier and mere- 
ly animal and sensual delights and enjoyments and pur- 
suits into satiety and disgust. The earth, that once was 
so great, will become too narrow for it, and too gross. 
Beauties will come and muster before its interior eye 
that will make all earthly beauty fade ; the glory of sun 
and moon and stars dwindle before the greater glory of 
unseen heavens ; music will ravish its inward ear, that 
will make all the grosser sounds of earthly harmonies, 
discords ; loves will draw it deeper than all earthly 
sympathies; it will become an exile, a captive pining for 
deliverance; earth will no longer be a home for it; it 
will account itself a stranger and pilgrim. Its gaze will 
be turned upward, not to the heavens of suns and stars, 
but to the greater heaven where dwell other powers and 
potentates — the infinite empyrean of truth and love and 
spiritual thrones and dominions. Henceforth things 
earthly and material will not satisfy it. The animal, 
which served it well, can serve it no longer; will have 
accomplished its mediatorial purpose; will have led the 
immortal to the door of his heaven, into which it cannot 
go; and being no further useful, but a clog and shackle, 
will be left at the gate. 

Thus, if we rightly interpret God's plan, the material 
creation from top to base is mere scaffolding to the 
spiritual; a structure of means, by the help of which to 
erect an immortal spiritual empire, into which shall en- 
ter nothing gross or base; an empire of souls, whose 
heaven shall be the fellowship of God — a fellowship of 
love, of knowledge, of beneficent activity, of growth into 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 257 

depths and heights of perfection and power, which will 
make them worthy objects of their Maker's love, and 
sharers of his bliss. 

The two forms of life known to be subject to death 
are similar, but differentiable. The same difference car- 
ries up into the death they suffer, both as to character 
and procuring causes. The first kind we have defined, 
vitalized material tissue, or simply force of growth, by 
the predetermined operation of which organisms, veg- 
etable and simply animal, are fashioned according to 
uniform and definitive types. Whether life itself in this 
lowest form is of the nature of spirit, we are not able to 
predicate. The subject of force in any of its forms is 
too occult for our faculties or experimentation. It seems 
to be resolvable into mere motion of will ultimately, and 
so to be manifestation of spirit, but no possible science 
reaches its home. And the position we take of this kind 
of life is, that in its nature it is perishable ; that wherever 
found to exist, as soon as it exists, and as an inseparable 
concomitant of its existence, it tends to extinction, and 
must inevitably, by operation of its law, reach extinc- 
tion, unless supernaturally perpetuated; that the death 
of such a life is concreated, and in no sense accidental. 
It not only may die, but it is its law to die. Not to die 
would be the miraculous removal of the law of its being. 
In fact, its momentary continuance is death. Death 
runs pari passu- with life. This appears upon the most 
casual observation of the action of life. As a force, its 
action is organifre by extending itself to unliving mat- 
ter, subsidizing it, incorporating it, and fashioning it 

into a living structure. But no accretion or expansion 
38 



258 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

is attained without attendant waste or surrender of the 
living form to death. Even the vegetable carries on its 
processes of growth by means of its inexplicable chem- 
istry, not without eliminating atomic portions of itself, 
and relegating them to elemental inanimation. Much 
more is this true of the animal. It, we know, carries 
forward its processes of nutrimentation, circulation, 
oxygenation, assimilation, and functional and voluntary 
activity, at constant expense and waste. " Under what- 
ever disguise it takes refuge, whether fungus or oak, 
worm or man, the living protoplasm not only ultimately 
dies, and is resolved into its mineral and lifeless con- 
stituents, but is always dying, and, strange as the para- 
dox may sound, could not live unless it died." — Hughy. 
The living tissue is incessantly lapsing into death by its 
own processes, so that in a short space of time not a 
particle of any original living structure remains living. 
It is asserted that to effect this entire change of cor- 
poreity only seven years is required. This may or may 
not be, but it is absolutely certain that most of the tissue 
is replaced. 

If it is true that in all these changes the life remains 
intact, it is no less true that that which was alive be- 
comes dead. But if we carry up the observation still 
further, we find that ultimately, in every case, when 
the organific force has completed its evolution, fin- 
ished its structure, put on the finial, becoming weary 
of the tense struggle with unfriendly forces, in the very 
moment of its victory it surrenders, and the curiously 
wrought work begins a process of decay more rapid than 
that of its previous growth, and a little on, where life was 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 259 

supreme, death holds undisputed sway. There is not, 
and never has been, an exception to this in the realm 
of terrestrial life. 

All things that have a material life live through a 
cycle, it may be a minute, it may be a thousand years, 
and die ; die because it is their law to die; die because 
that for which they lived has been accomplished, and be- 
cause continuance of life has no adequate end. Life is 
a transient and transitive force. Thus it appears, from 
the nature of the life acting in and through matter, that 
death is its normal terminus ad quern. 

If the force is self-destructive, much more is it the 
inevitable prey of other hostile forces which perpetually 
make war upon it, which, though kept in abeyance for a 
time, and even made to serve its ends, finally triumph 
over it. The organism it elaborates with such infinite 
skill and delicacy of fiber is too fragile to maintain for- 
ever the unequal contest with the destructive forces 
which beleaguer it on every side. The earthquakes 
which rend the mountain and shift the foundations of 
the continents, and the storms which hurtle through the 
sky and devour the sea, must be fatal to it ; the still 
more subtle but not less deadly agents which exude 
from the earth and ride noiselessly on the atmosphere, 
must ultimately undermine and overthrow it. The 
scheme of nature in which it has its home is fitted up 
for its destruction. 

Nothing short of eternal miracle, set for the guardian- 
ship of each life, could guarantee its deathless continu- 
ance. When it shall succumb to its own wastes and 
the assaults of other unfriendly forces, is only a ques- 



Z60 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

tion of limited time, and a question to which the answer 
is not uncertain. 

My second argument is derived from the fact that one 
class of life is dependent for its subsistence on the de- 
struction of another class. This, if it be true, is proof 
direct that death as a necessity is corporate in the sys- 
tem of nature. That it is a fact appears in two ways 
most conclusively. 

The vegetable takes its life from unliving substance 
by an alchemy too subtle for our detection, a chemistry 
by whose mysterious manifestation death turns to life. 
This is not so, however, of the animal. The chemistry 
of nature furnishes it no direct alimentation. It must 
immediately perish if it have not some life upon which 
to subsist, or, if not life now, a compound of matter which 
was once living as well as product of life. The life of 
the animal is the necessary death of the vegetable. 
Nature is vicarious. No law is more primitive or fun- 
damental than this. But this is not all : the manner 
of subsidizing vegetable life by animals of several 
orders cannot be carried on without the destruction, 
also, not merely of a few, but of vast multitudes of 
provinces of other animal life. There is not a leaf of 
herbage cropped by grazing herds which was not the 
home of a numerous population of insect and micro- 
scopic life, which was destroyed in the destruction of 
its habitat. St. Pierre, by careful observation, proves 
that thousands of organized, locomotive beings inhabit 
a single strawberry leaf, to whom the morning dew-drop 
is a Noachian flood, and a single sun's rising and setting 
an epoch. And science, by the same careful processes 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 26 1 

of observation, peoples every drop of water and minut- 
est portion of air with infinitesimal animal existence, 
which by every respiration and slaking of thirst is de- 
stroyed by higher animals. These are facts well known 
to even casual observers. Death is thus not only seen 
to be a part of the plan, but a necessary part of it. It 
may be said that this is a kind of life too insignificant 
to mention : true, it is a low type, but it is life, and suf- 
fices to prove that death is normal as life. 

But what is true of the inferior forms of life is true of 
the higher also. A slight attention to the structure and 
physiology of the superior races, as they are properly 
styled, shows that they were created for each other, one 
class to subsist on the nutritious tissue of the others. 
There is no more evidence that vegetable matter was pri- 
marily designed for animal food than there is that some 
animals were created, among other purposes, for the pur- 
pose of being devoured by others ; the fatty juices of the 
one made for the stomach of the other. The one was cre- 
ated with special faculties of various kinds which would 
be of use in capturing and subsidizing its prey; with 
optical powers and keen scent to enable it to find the 
cunning hiding-place ; and with fleet wings and legs and 
other prehensile facilities to capture its prey, and armed 
with instruments of death to destroy it. The claws, 
talons, and teeth, and other structural apparatus of car- 
niverous kinds, point to the destruction of life as final 
cause, as distinctly and unequivocally as the structure 
of the eye indicates its final cause to be vision. They 
are alike adapted to their end and necessary to their end, 
and equally indispensable to the continued existence of 



262 REYOXD THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

the life. Thus the fashion, habits, and necessities of the 
structures built by life proclaim death to be normal 
and primitive. It is born of creation, not of retribution. 
It is God's offspring direct, not a penal device. It ex- 
ists in the bosom of sinless, not sinning nature. 

My third proof is derived from the law of fecundation 
or propagation obtaining among living things. 

Each species of life has its specific law of propaga- 
tion and fecundation, which is a part of its original en- 
dowment and investiture. These laws determine the 
amount and method of life contained potentially in each 
creation. They are of the essence of creation — the first 
or properly creative act, including all after develop- 
ments of the life principle or nature. The law declares 
itself by the operations of nature. In this way we be- 
come cognizant of its existence. Now, it is my purpose 
to show that these included laws of the propagation of 
life are inconsistent with the idea of the permanence of 
the atomic lives, or individuals, which come to existence 
by their operation, and by this means to show that per- 
ishability of the individual lives was an inclusion of the 
plan of life itself, so tracing death to the original decree 
or purpose of God as normal. The scheme of life, as 
to its breadth and variety, even in the measure in which 
it has come to our knowledge, is not simply wonderful, 
it is amazing; we cannot attempt the survey of any con- 
siderable part of it, but must suffice with one or two 
illustrations. Prepare to be surprised at what follows. 
I am sure the event will astonish you more than you can 
imagine. 

Let us take for our first illustration the little English 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 263 

sparrow, suggested by hearing its vigorous chatter this 
snowy morning from the cover of a neighboring ivy. 
Within a few years it has become as familiar to the parks 
and groves of America, and as great a favorite in our 
homes, as it has always been amid the lawns and ivy- 
grown vales of Europe. It is well known that it is both 
an exceedingly hardy and prolific species — having young 
with great frequency and persistency — not improbably 
averaging, in the case of a healthy bird, not less than a 
score of offspring, which, indeed, is a moderate estimate. 
Suppose two of these beautiful creatures to have been 
originally created, and the law of their being to have been 
that they should propagate a single brood of not more 
than four, and their fecundation then cease ; their off- 
spring to be subject to the same law, the fresh brood on- 
coming when the parent bird attained its twelfth month : 
thus each year producing double the birds of the preced- 
ing. Now suppose all endowed with permanence of life, 
what would be the result as to the number of sparrows at 
the end of two hundred years, or at the two hundredth 
generation ? It is a simple arithmetic problem, which any 
ordinary child may work out in a few hours by starting 
with two and multiplying the product by two two hun- 
dred times, or doubling each year for two hundred years, 
or more quickly yet, the result may be ascertained by 
reference to logarithmetic tables. The experiment will 
show that they would reach the sum of 3,262,019,678,- 
459, 263, 839, 964, 499, 350, 631, 378,022,737,142,959,936,- 
020,783,562,752, which, if read after the French method 
of notation, would be (counting all the inferior num- 
bers as ciphers) three octillions of decillions; a sum so 



264 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

enormous as to transcend all power of conception or ex- 
pression almost. Let us now inquire what disposition 
could be made of this amount of life, if there were no 
other lives to be provided for. What relation, do you 
suppose, would the sparrows have to the square inches 
on the earth's surface ? I have propounded this ques- 
tion to many thoughtful and even scholarly men and 
women, and have found a few who, after a little reflec- 
tion, imagined there might be nearly a sparrow for each 
square inch. In fact, it shows the number of sparrows 
to be more than three hundred millions of decillions 
for each square inch. If you doubt, reduce the two 
hundred millions of square miles which constitute the 
earth's surface to square inches. You will find the 
number to be 8,614,775,040,000,000,000, which you will 
find will go into the above number more than three 
hundred millions of decillions of times. Suppose a 
sparrow to be an inch in height, the earth at the end of 
two hundred years would be surmounted with a column 
of sparrows three hundred millions of decillions of inches 
high. There are 63,360 inches in a mile; the column 
would, therefore, be more than four thousand decillions 
of miles high. The sun is one hundred millions of 
miles from the earth ; the column would, therefore, tower 
into space forty octillions of times higher than the sun 
— nothing but sparrows. 

Take another view. The sun is a globe 888,000 miles 
in diameter. The solid contents of this vast body, re- 
duced to cubic half inches, shows the number of half-inch 
cubes to be, in round numbers, seven decillions. Multi- 
ply this by five hundred millions, the number of similar 



BE YOND THE GRA VE— APPENDIX. 265 

bodies within the reach of the greatest telescopic power, 
and we have thirty-five billions of decillions. This sum 
will go into the number of sparrows about nine hundred 
trillions of times. Now, allowing a sparrow to be equal 
to a cube of half an inch, they would in two hundred 
years be equal in bulk to four hundred and thirty-nine 
quadrillions nine hundred trillions of universes as large 
as the one known to us, or it would require all the sub- 
stance of the universe multiplied nine hundred trillions 
of times to furnish materials for sparrows' bodies. If 
we suppose the sparrows to have existed since Adam's 
creation, the figures to represent their number would 
make a row one thousand eight hundred units long, and 
the number of universes required to supply these bodies 
would be expressed by a row of figures one thousand 
seven hundred and fifty-five units long. 

Let us substitute men for sparrows. Suppose, as in 
the former case, each generation to double, or each hu- 
man pair to have four children, and none die ; as we are 
now about the two hundredth generation, the figures at 
the present time would be the same as in the above cal- 
culation. Let us give a foot square to each man, and 
suppose the average height to be four feet, what would 
be the result as to the relation of men to the square feet 
on the earth's surface ? 

The number of men would be in round numbers, as al- 
ready stated, 3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,- 
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or, in round 
numbers, three octillions of decillions. Then add 5,575,- 
680,000,000,000 quadrillions of square feet on the earth's 

surface. This would go into the above more than five hun- 
34 



266 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

dred billions of decillions of times, which would be the 
number of men for each square foot. As, by supposition, 
the average height is four feet, the column of human flesh 
would tower into space to the inconceivable height of 
two trillions of decillions of feet, which, divided by 
5,280, the number of feet in a mile, would show four 
hundred millions of decillions of miles, or, as shown by 
dividing this sum by 100,000,000, the number of miles 
the sun is from the earth, it would be four decillions of 
times higher than the sun. Now, as it takes a ray of 
light eight minutes to reach the earth from the sun, it 
would require more than thirty-two decillions of min- 
utes to traverse the length of this column of human flesh ; 
and as there are but 525,600 minutes in a year, it would 
require fifty octillions of years for the ray to make the 
transit, a measure of which there are no parallels known 
even in the sidereal spaces — quintillions of times greater 
than the distance between us and the most remote nebula. 
Take still another illustration. This time it shall be 
from the most fecund realm of life. The cod-fish is 
said by naturalists to spawn 3,000,000 eggs in a single 
season. Suppose the eggs to become fish, and the same 
law to obtain for each — the law of its species — at the end 
of ten years the number of fish would amount to 214,- 
449, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 ,000, 000, 000, 000.- 
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 millions of decillions. 
This, divided by the number of cubic feet in a cube the 
diameter of the world, that is 8,000 miles, (which would be 
75,365,351,424,000,000,000,000 sextillions,) would show 
more than three millions of decillions. Suppose one hun- 
dred fish for each cubic foot, each weighing ten pounds, 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 267 

the cube, therefore, weighing 1,000 pounds — which is six 
times the weight of granite, three times the weight of 
lead, and nearly equal to the weight of gold — we should 
then have thirty thousand decillions of worlds the size 
of the earth, of the weight of gold, of nothing but tissue 
of cod-fish, in ten years. We have introduced but three 
varieties of life of the millions of millions of species that 
the great God made to dwell on the face of the earth, 
and we have discovered that these three would, in the 
space of a few years, not merely crowd the entire sur- 
face of the earth, but would pile it higher than the ut- 
most known heavens if death did not cut short their 
existence. What would it be if all the species were 
deathless? Nothing is more certain or obvious than 
that He who originated the realm of life, and appointed 
its fecundity, appointed death as its necessaiy concom- 
itant. The one order included the other; birth carried 
death not less certainly and necessarily than life in its 
embrace. 

My fourth argument is, that death existed before sin, 
and could not, therefore, be penal. The historical ar- 
gument, like the two preceding, is independent, and in 
itself conclusive. 

Geological science discloses an extremely high an- 
tiquity for the globe on which we dwell, and that 
throughout all its ages of life it has been the abode of 
death. Man is a parvenu, a modern creation, the very 
latest. It is, indeed, but a few thousand years since he 
came to his home, tenanted for uncounted millions be- 
fore. This is the teaching of both records, the inspired 
and the geological. Among all the ancient memorials 



268 BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 

of life there is no trace of him, but all those outside 
memorials are memorials of death as much as life, show- 
ing that all along over all the surfaces of the globe life 
and death equally prevailed. The globe itself is a vast 
catacomb, corded to its deepest base with remains of 
species and orders extinct cycles of ages before any of 
the present races made it their home. No one who has 
any information in the premises pretends any more to 
doubt these facts. Thus sin, which entered the world 
"by one man," is new, while death is ancient. The 
cause cannot be subsequent to the effect. To prove the 
force of this overwhelming fact two idle conceits have 
been invented. One, that earth was the scene of an an- 
cient rebellion of some pre-Adamite man, or possibly of 
the angels who kept not their first estate, and from that 
sin emanated the long line of death whose desolations 
extend over geological eras. This vain imagination, of 
course, neither admits of nor requires an answer. The 
other is the supposition of so wise a man as Horace Bush- 
nell. We are constrained to express our surprise that 
so wild a dream should have emanated from so sane a 
brain. It is, that death reigned over these ancient races 
as anticipative penal effects of the Adamic sin — not 
death simply, but all disorders and abnormal conditions 
of nature. Indeed, Dr. Bushnell holds that sin is a dy- 
namical force, which, whenever introduced, may work 
all manner of evil throughout the whole realm of nature. 
His chapter on the anticipative consequences of sin 
should be read, both as an ingenious, statement and to do 
justice to his view. But the whole theory, we think, is 
absurd, because of the presupposition on which it rests. 



BEYOND THE GRAVE— APPENDIX. 269 

It is invented to explain a difficulty which is purely 
chimerical. Why need sin be supposed to account for 
natural death ? What principle of divine justice is mani- 
fested by tracing the death of unsinning races to the sin 
of a sinning race ? Is it any more difficult to suppose 
that their death was included, as a fact, in their being, 
than that it was retributive of sins to which they were no 
party ? Surely not. Ethically the theory is fundament- 
ally incorrect. 



THE END. 



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